{"id":14027,"date":"2018-01-28T19:05:43","date_gmt":"2018-01-28T11:05:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp-productionenv-bjg9h2g2bgg5b8aa.southeastasia-01.azurewebsites.net\/news\/china-launches-fourth-trio-of-yaogan-military-satellites-since-september\/"},"modified":"2018-01-28T19:05:43","modified_gmt":"2018-01-28T11:05:43","slug":"china-launches-fourth-trio-of-yaogan-military-satellites-since-september","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/news\/china-launches-fourth-trio-of-yaogan-military-satellites-since-september\/","title":{"rendered":"China launches fourth trio of Yaogan military satellites since September"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure id=\"attachment_30124\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-30124\" style=\"width: 900px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-30124\" src=\"http:\/\/spaceflightnow.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/01\/136924133_15168708358361n.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"900\" height=\"634\" srcset=\"https:\/\/spaceflightnow.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/01\/136924133_15168708358361n.jpg 900w, https:\/\/spaceflightnow.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/01\/136924133_15168708358361n-300x211.jpg 300w, https:\/\/spaceflightnow.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/01\/136924133_15168708358361n-768x541.jpg 768w, https:\/\/spaceflightnow.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/01\/136924133_15168708358361n-678x478.jpg 678w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 900px) 100vw, 900px\"><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-30124\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">A Long March 2C rocket lifted off Thursday, Jan. 25, from the Xichang space center. Credit: Xinhua<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>A fourth trio of Chinese Yaogan military satellites with secret missions launched Thursday aboard a Long March 2C rocket from the Xichang space base in China\u2019s Sichuan province.<\/p>\n<p>The spacecraft join nine others launched into similar 370-mile-high (600-kilometer) orbits on three previous Long March 2C flights from the Xichang spaceport Sept. 29, Nov. 24 and Dec. 25.<\/p>\n<p>The latest triplet of Yaogan 30 satellites lifted off at 0539 GMT (12:39 a.m. EST; 1:39 p.m. Beijing time) Thursday, Jan. 25, from the mountainous Xichang launch site in southwestern China.<\/p>\n<p>A two-stage Long March 2C rocket, fueled by liquid hydrazine and nitrogen tetroxide propellants, boosted the Yaogan 30-04 satellite group into orbit approximately 370 miles above Earth on a track inclined at an angle of 35 degrees to the equator, according to data published by the U.S. military.<\/p>\n<p>China\u2019s state-run Xinhua news agency reported the satellites will conduct \u201cremote sensing\u201d missions, and officials proclaimed the launch a success.<\/p>\n<p>The Yaogan series of satellites are believed to be operated by the Chinese military for intelligence-gathering purposes.<\/p>\n<p>Some analysts suggested the nine Yaogan 30-01, 30-02 and 30-03 satellites launched over the last three months could be testing new electronic eavesdropping equipment or helping the Chinese military track U.S. and other foreign naval deployments.<\/p>\n<p>But details about the spacecraft and their missions have not been disclosed by the Chinese government.<\/p>\n<p>China\u2019s military has another satellite named Yaogan 30, but it is in polar orbit and believed to be a high-resolution imaging spacecraft.<\/p>\n<p>A Chinese nanosatellite named Weina 1A hitched a ride on Thursday\u2019s Long March 2C flight. Past launches Yaogan 30 satellites carried no secondary payloads.<\/p>\n<p>The launch Thursday was the fifth Chinese space mission to blast off since the start of 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 2C rocket lifted off Thursday, Jan. 25, from the Xichang space center. Credit: Xinhua A fourth trio of Chinese Yaogan military satellites with secret missions launched Thursday aboard a Long March 2C rocket from the Xichang space base in China\u2019s Sichuan province. The spacecraft join nine others launched into similar 370-mile-high (600-kilometer) [&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":[135,25,205,1740,1741,1743,3053],"class_list":["post-14027","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-china","tag-launch","tag-long-march","tag-long-march-2c","tag-xichang","tag-yaogan-30","tag-yaogan-30-04"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14027"}],"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=14027"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14027\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14027"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14027"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14027"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}