{"id":13564,"date":"2018-10-12T23:49:54","date_gmt":"2018-10-12T15:49:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp-productionenv-bjg9h2g2bgg5b8aa.southeastasia-01.azurewebsites.net\/news\/two-satellites-with-secretive-missions-launched-by-china\/"},"modified":"2018-10-12T23:49:54","modified_gmt":"2018-10-12T15:49:54","slug":"two-satellites-with-secretive-missions-launched-by-china","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/news\/two-satellites-with-secretive-missions-launched-by-china\/","title":{"rendered":"Two satellites with secretive missions launched by China"},"content":{"rendered":"
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A Long March 2C rocket lifted off Tuesday with two Yaogan 32 military satellites. Credit: Xinhua<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Two Chinese Yaogan military reconnaissance satellites launched this week, riding a Long March 2C booster into orbit on a mission that inaugurated the use of a new restartable upper stage to increase the rocket\u2019s carrying capacity.<\/p>\n

The two Yaogan 32 satellites, designated Yaogan 32-01 and 32-02, lifted off from the Jiuquan space center in remote northwestern China at 0243 GMT Tuesday (10:43 p.m. EDT Monday), according to the state-run Xinhua news agency.<\/p>\n

The launch occurred at 10:43 a.m. Beijing time Tuesday.<\/p>\n

Topped by a Yuanzheng 1S upper stage, the Long March 2C rocket climbed away from Jiuquan in China\u2019s Inner Mongolia region to place the Yaogan 32 satellites into a roughly 430-mile-high (nearly 700-kilometer) orbit.<\/p>\n

U.S. military tracking data indicated the satellites were deployed in an orbit with a track angled 98.3 degrees to the equator, enabling near-global coverage.<\/p>\n

But details on the purpose of the Yaogan 32 satellites remains a mystery.<\/p>\n

Xinhua reported the satellites \u201cwill be used for electromagnetic environment surveys and other related technology tests.\u201d<\/p>\n

Satellites in the Yaogan series are typically used by the Chinese military, including spacecraft to test new technologies and capture high-resolution surveillance imagery. Xinhua often offers no details on the design or specific missions of such satellites.<\/p>\n

The Yuanzheng 1S upper stage is based on a similiar restartable space tug previously used to deliver Chinese Beidou navigation satellites to their intended orbits thousands of miles above the planet.<\/p>\n

The China Academy of Launch Vehicle Technology said the Yuanzheng 1S upper stage variant is a simplified version of the Yuanzheng 1 designed for short flights. Xinhua reported the new upper stage will be mainly used for commercial launches.<\/p>\n

Yuanzheng is the Chinese word for expedition.<\/p>\n

With the addition of the Yuanzheng 1S upper stage, the Long March 2C rocket can place a payload of up to two metric tons (about 4,400 pounds) into sun-synchronous orbit, a popular destination for Earth observation spacecraft. Without the upper stage, the Long March 2C\u2019s lift capability to the same type of orbit is 1.2 metric tons (about 2,650 pounds).<\/p>\n

Tuesday\u2019s launch was the 27th of the year by China, which has conducted more satellite launches than any other nation so far in 2018.<\/p>\n

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

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

A Long March 2C rocket lifted off Tuesday with two Yaogan 32 military satellites. Credit: Xinhua Two Chinese Yaogan military reconnaissance satellites launched this week, riding a Long March 2C booster into orbit on a mission that inaugurated the use of a new restartable upper stage to increase the rocket\u2019s carrying capacity. The two Yaogan […]<\/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":[1886,135,1578,25,205,1740,1742,2861],"class_list":["post-13564","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-calt","tag-china","tag-jiuquan","tag-launch","tag-long-march","tag-long-march-2c","tag-yaogan","tag-yaogan-32"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13564"}],"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=13564"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13564\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13564"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13564"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13564"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}