{"id":14964,"date":"2017-01-06T19:04:31","date_gmt":"2017-01-06T11:04:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp-productionenv-bjg9h2g2bgg5b8aa.southeastasia-01.azurewebsites.net\/news\/long-march-rocket-blasts-off-on-first-launch-of-the-year\/"},"modified":"2017-01-06T19:04:31","modified_gmt":"2017-01-06T11:04:31","slug":"long-march-rocket-blasts-off-on-first-launch-of-the-year","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/news\/long-march-rocket-blasts-off-on-first-launch-of-the-year\/","title":{"rendered":"Long March rocket blasts off on first launch of the year"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure id=\"attachment_21272\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-21272\" style=\"width: 1190px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-21272\" src=\"http:\/\/spaceflightnow.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/01\/lm3b_jan5.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"1190\" height=\"555\" srcset=\"https:\/\/spaceflightnow.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/01\/lm3b_jan5.png 1190w, https:\/\/spaceflightnow.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/01\/lm3b_jan5-300x140.png 300w, https:\/\/spaceflightnow.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/01\/lm3b_jan5-768x358.png 768w, https:\/\/spaceflightnow.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/01\/lm3b_jan5-1024x478.png 1024w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1190px) 100vw, 1190px\"><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-21272\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">A Long March 3B rocket lifted off at 1518 GMT (10:18 a.m. EST) Thursday. Credit: CCTV<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>A new satellite bound for geostationary orbit more than 22,000 miles over the equator launched aboard a Chinese Long March 3B rocket Thursday, but government officials have released little information about its mission.<\/p>\n<p>China\u2019s state-run Xinhua news agency reported the spacecraft lifted off at 1518 GMT (10:18 a.m. EST) Thursday from the Xichang space center in southwest China\u2019s Sichuan province.<\/p>\n<p>The launch occurred at 11:18 p.m. Beijing time.<\/p>\n<p>Boosted by four strap-on engines, the Long March 3B flew east from Xichang and placed a payload into an egg-shaped geostationary transfer orbit stretching as high as 22,250 miles (35,809 kilometers), with a low point of 126 miles (204 kilometers), and a tilt of 27.5 degrees to the equator, according to U.S. military tracking data.<\/p>\n<p>Xinhua said the spacecraft on-board Thursday\u2019s launch was the \u201cNo. 2 telecommunication technology test satellite,\u201d and the government-run news agency offered no further details on the mission.<\/p>\n<p>The satellite is expected to use its own thrusters to maneuver into a circular geostationary orbit nearly 22,300 miles (35,800 kilometers) above the equator.<\/p>\n<p>The spacecraft was manufactured by the Shanghai Academy of Spaceflight Technology, but the operator of the satellite was not disclosed by Chinese media, leading some analysts to suggest it is a covert military platform.<\/p>\n<p>A satellite with a similar description from Xinhua was launched into a geostationary transfer orbit on another Long March 3B rocket in September 2015. Officials at the same said that satellite would conduct Ka-band communications experiments in space.<\/p>\n<p>Thursday\u2019s launch was the first space launch of the year worldwide.<\/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 3B rocket lifted off at 1518 GMT (10:18 a.m. EST) Thursday. Credit: CCTV A new satellite bound for geostationary orbit more than 22,000 miles over the equator launched aboard a Chinese Long March 3B rocket Thursday, but government officials have released little information about its mission. China\u2019s state-run Xinhua news agency reported [&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":[135,205,1888,1611,1741],"class_list":["post-14964","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-china","tag-long-march","tag-long-march-3b","tag-telecom","tag-xichang"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14964"}],"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=14964"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14964\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14964"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14964"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14964"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}