{"id":13933,"date":"2018-03-18T18:27:30","date_gmt":"2018-03-18T10:27:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp-productionenv-bjg9h2g2bgg5b8aa.southeastasia-01.azurewebsites.net\/news\/fourth-satellite-in-new-chinese-spy-fleet-successfully-launched\/"},"modified":"2018-03-18T18:27:30","modified_gmt":"2018-03-18T10:27:30","slug":"fourth-satellite-in-new-chinese-spy-fleet-successfully-launched","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/news\/fourth-satellite-in-new-chinese-spy-fleet-successfully-launched\/","title":{"rendered":"Fourth satellite in new Chinese spy fleet successfully launched"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure id=\"attachment_31094\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-31094\" style=\"width: 899px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-31094\" src=\"http:\/\/spaceflightnow.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/03\/137046028_15212856279211n.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"899\" height=\"599\" srcset=\"https:\/\/spaceflightnow.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/03\/137046028_15212856279211n.jpg 899w, https:\/\/spaceflightnow.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/03\/137046028_15212856279211n-300x200.jpg 300w, https:\/\/spaceflightnow.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/03\/137046028_15212856279211n-768x512.jpg 768w, https:\/\/spaceflightnow.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/03\/137046028_15212856279211n-678x452.jpg 678w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 899px) 100vw, 899px\"><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-31094\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">A Long March 2D rocket launched with the LKW-4 reconnaissance satellite Saturday. Credit: Xinhua<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>China launched the fourth in a series of high-resolution Earth-imaging satellites Saturday, expanding an orbiting fleet of reconnaissance craft that likely serve the Chinese military.<\/p>\n<p>The LKW-4 satellite lifted off at 0710 GMT (3:10 a.m. EDT) Saturday on top of a Long March 2D rocket from the Jiuquan launch base, a military-operated facility in the Gobi Desert situated in northwestern China\u2019s Inner Mongolia region.<\/p>\n<p>China\u2019s state-run Xinhua news agency reported the \u201cland exploration satellite\u201d was successfully delivered to its planned orbit by the two-stage Long March 2D booster.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe satellite is the fourth of its kind and mainly used for exploration of land resources by remote sensing,\u201d Xinhua reported.<\/p>\n<p>Chinese media did not provide details of the satellite\u2019s design or capabilities, or which Chinese organizations will use the imagery collected by the spacecraft\u2019s optical camera.<\/p>\n<p>Tracking data collected and published by the U.S. military indicated the LKW-4 satellite was deployed into an orbit nearly 310 miles (500 kilometers) above Earth. The satellite\u2019s orbital track is inclined 97.3 degrees to the equator.<\/p>\n<p>Three previous satellites, designated LKW-1, 2 and 3, were launched into the same type orbit from Jiuquan aboard three Long March 2D rockets in December and January.<\/p>\n<p>The satellites are presumably part of a new Chinese military reconnaissance fleet, carrying high-resolution imaging instruments.<\/p>\n<p>Saturday\u2019s mission was China\u2019s eighth space launch of the year, and the 25th orbital launch worldwide so far in 2018.<\/p>\n<p><b><i>Email the author.<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n<p><em><strong>Follow Stephen Clark on Twitter: @StephenClark1.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A Long March 2D rocket launched with the LKW-4 reconnaissance satellite Saturday. Credit: Xinhua China launched the fourth in a series of high-resolution Earth-imaging satellites Saturday, expanding an orbiting fleet of reconnaissance craft that likely serve the Chinese military. The LKW-4 satellite lifted off at 0710 GMT (3:10 a.m. EDT) Saturday on top of a [&hellip;]<\/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":[135,159,1578,25,3012,3013,205,2184],"class_list":["post-13933","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-china","tag-earth-observation","tag-jiuquan","tag-launch","tag-lkw","tag-lkw-4","tag-long-march","tag-long-march-2d"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13933"}],"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=13933"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13933\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13933"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13933"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13933"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}