{"id":12858,"date":"2019-11-03T20:28:33","date_gmt":"2019-11-03T12:28:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp-productionenv-bjg9h2g2bgg5b8aa.southeastasia-01.azurewebsites.net\/news\/chinese-mapping-satellite-launches-on-long-march-4b-rocket\/"},"modified":"2019-11-03T20:28:33","modified_gmt":"2019-11-03T12:28:33","slug":"chinese-mapping-satellite-launches-on-long-march-4b-rocket","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/news\/chinese-mapping-satellite-launches-on-long-march-4b-rocket\/","title":{"rendered":"Chinese mapping satellite launches on Long March 4B rocket"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"
A Chinese Long March 4B rocket lifted off Sunday with four satellites on-board. Credit: Xinhua<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

An Earth observation satellite designed to collect three-dimensional mapping imagery rode a Long March 4B rocket into orbit Sunday with three smaller spacecraft, including one to test an innovative French-made iodine thruster, and another satellite built for Sudan.<\/p>\n

Hailed as a milestone in cooperation between European and Chinese space industries, the French thruster was made by a Paris-based startup named ThrustMe. Integrated into a briefcase-sized 6U CubeSat, the propulsion system is the first of its kind to be tested in space, officials said.<\/p>\n

The primary payload launched Sunday was Gaofen 7, the latest in a series civilian-operated Chinese Earth observation satellites. Gaofen 7 is China\u2019s first civilian-use optical surveillance satellite capable of collecting three-dimensional images with better than one-meter (3.3-foot) resolution, according to the China National Space Administration.<\/p>\n

Two other small satellites were aboard Sunday\u2019s launch: Huangpu 1, a technology demonstration satellite for a planned constellation of low Earth orbit satellites, and the Sudan Scientific Experimental Satellite.<\/p>\n

The four satellites lifted off at 0322 GMT Sunday (11:22 p.m. EDT Saturday) from the Taiyuan space center in northeastern China\u2019s Shanxi province, according to the state-run Xinhua news agency.<\/p>\n

A 15-story Long March 4B booster carried the satellites into orbit. The three-stage rocket delivered the quartet of payloads into a near-circular polar orbit roughly 310 miles (500 kilometers) above Earth, with an inclination of 97.5 degrees to the equator, according to U.S. military tracking data.<\/p>\n

Chinese officials declared the launch a success.<\/p>\n

The Xinhua news agency said the Gaofen 7 satellite, the largest spacecraft on Sunday\u2019s launch, was developed by the China Academy of Space Technology, a state-owned contractor in the Chinese space program.<\/p>\n

Gaofen 7\u2019s high-resolution optical imager and laser altimeter will gather precise topographic data, officials said.<\/p>\n

The Chinese Ministry of Natural Resources, the Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development and the National Bureau of Statistics will be the main users of Gaofen 7 satellite data, according to Xinhua.<\/p>\n

The Gaofen satellites, which began launching in 2013, are part of the China High-Resolution Earth Observation System, or CHEOS. Chinese officials say the CHEOS satellite fleet is a civilian-operated program comprising optical and radar imaging spacecraft, and authorities have published high-resolution imagery taken by previous Gaofen satellites.<\/p>\n

The CubeSat hosting the French thruster experiment is named Xiaoxiang 1-08, or Dianfeng, was built by Spacety Co. Ltd., a privately-owned Chinese smallsat manufacturer.<\/p>\n

\"\"
A ThrustMe engineer works with ground test equipment. Credit: ThrustMe<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

According to ThrustMe, the propulsion system \u201cuses a first-of-its-kind, non-pressurized, cold gas thruster fueled by solid iodine.\u201d<\/p>\n

ThrustMe said in a statement that the iodine thruster is designed for CubeSats, and could enable nanosatellites to extend their lives and perform collision avoidance maneuvers. ThrustMe is also working on an iodine-based electric propulsion system, which the company said could enable orbital changes and constellation phasing.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is a historic launch in so many ways: for ThrustMe, for Spacety, and for the whole space community,\u201d said Ane Aanesland, co-founder and CEO of ThrustMe. \u201cThe first time we spoke about iodine as a good candidate to replace pressurized gases, such as xenon, was in 2008.\u201d<\/p>\n

ThrustMe said the agreement to place the iodine thruster on Spacety\u2019s satellite was finalized within the past year.<\/p>\n

\u201cFrom idea to launch in less than a year, from contract to launch in eight months,\u201d ThrustMe said in a statement. \u201cThrustMe and Spacety, with this first launch together, demonstrate the importance of open-minded international collaborations.\u201d<\/p>\n

ThrustMe, founded in 2017, was established as a spinoff from the Laboratoire de Physique des Plasmas at the Ecole Polytechnique and the CNRS, a French government scientific research agency.<\/p>\n

The iodine thruster project was funded by public investments and government grants from French institutions and the European Union, ThrustMe said.<\/p>\n

Email the author.<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n

Follow Stephen Clark on Twitter: @StephenClark1.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A Chinese Long March 4B rocket lifted off Sunday with four satellites on-board. Credit: Xinhua An Earth observation satellite designed to collect three-dimensional mapping imagery rode a Long March 4B rocket into orbit Sunday with three smaller spacecraft, including one to test an innovative French-made iodine thruster, and another satellite built for Sudan. Hailed as […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[135,1608,159,242,1793,2461,25,205],"class_list":["post-12858","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-china","tag-cubesats","tag-earth-observation","tag-france","tag-gaofen","tag-gaofen-7","tag-launch","tag-long-march"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12858"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12858"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12858\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12858"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12858"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12858"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}