{"id":14975,"date":"2016-12-28T17:56:02","date_gmt":"2016-12-28T09:56:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp-productionenv-bjg9h2g2bgg5b8aa.southeastasia-01.azurewebsites.net\/news\/chinese-earth-observation-satellites-launched-into-lower-than-planned-orbit\/"},"modified":"2016-12-28T17:56:02","modified_gmt":"2016-12-28T09:56:02","slug":"chinese-earth-observation-satellites-launched-into-lower-than-planned-orbit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/news\/chinese-earth-observation-satellites-launched-into-lower-than-planned-orbit\/","title":{"rendered":"Chinese Earth observation satellites launched into lower-than-planned orbit"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"678\" height=\"381\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/9RVWnoe9x6o?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Two commercial Earth-imaging satellites launched by a Chinese Long March 2D booster Wednesday are flying in lower-than-planned orbits after an apparent rocket mishap, according to tracking data published by the U.S. military.<\/p>\n<p>The two SuperView 1, or Gaojing 1, satellites are flying in egg-shaped orbits ranging from 133 miles (214 kilometers) to 325 miles (524 kilometers) in altitude at an inclination of 97.6 degrees.<\/p>\n<p>The satellites would likely re-enter Earth\u2019s atmosphere within months in such a low orbit, and it was unclear late Wednesday whether the craft had enough propellant to raise their altitudes.<\/p>\n<p>The high-resolution Earth-observing platforms were supposed to go into a near-circular orbit around 300 miles (500 kilometers) above the planet to begin their eight-year missions collecting imagery for Siwei Star Co. Ltd., a subsidiary of China Aerospace Science and Technology Corp., a government-owned entity.<\/p>\n<p>The 1,234-pound-pound (560-kilogram) satellites lifted off at 0323 GMT Wednesday (10:23 p.m. EST Tuesday) from the Taiyuan space center in northern China\u2019s Shanxi province on top of a 13-story Long March 2D rocket, according to China\u2019s state-run Xinhua news agency.<\/p>\n<p>The launch occurred at 11:23 a.m. Beijing time, marking China\u2019s 22nd attempted space launch of the year, and the 21st rocket mission to reach orbit.<\/p>\n<p>But the two-stage launcher did not put the SuperView 1 satellites into the expected orbit, raising concerns among outside observers that the Long March 2D ran into problems.<\/p>\n<p>The mission also carried a small amateur radio satellites made by Beijing high school students.<\/p>\n<p>The SuperView 1 satellites are designed to collect optical black-and-white imagery with a resolution of less than 20 inches (about 50 centimeters), making them the highest-resolution civilian Earth-observing satellites launched by China.<\/p>\n<p>The satellites can capture imagery in nearly 7.5-mile-wide (12-kilometer) swaths, turning to observe multiple locations on a single pass, or record images of the same point from multiple angles, allowing processors on the ground to generate stereo three-dimensional images.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_21191\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-21191\" style=\"width: 676px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" class=\" wp-image-21191\" src=\"http:\/\/spaceflightnow.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/12\/CyV5yyGUcAEE_YI.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"676\" height=\"337\" srcset=\"https:\/\/spaceflightnow.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/12\/CyV5yyGUcAEE_YI.jpg 662w, https:\/\/spaceflightnow.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/12\/CyV5yyGUcAEE_YI-300x150.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 676px) 100vw, 676px\"><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-21191\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Artist\u2019s concept of Beijing Space View\u2019s planned constellation of optical and radar imaging satellites. The spacecraft illustrated at upper left is one of the SuperView 1 satellites launched Wednesday. Credit: Beijing Space View<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Color images from the SuperView 1 satellites will have a resolution of around 6 feet, or 2 meters, according to information released by Beijing Space View Technology Ltd., which holds exclusive rights to distribute and sell SuperView 1 imagery globally for mapping, land use, urban planning, agricultural, oil and gas exploration, maritime, security, defense and intelligence applications, the company said.<\/p>\n<p>Beijing Space View\u2019s sister-company Siwei WorldView is a joint venture between Siwei Surveying and Mapping Technology Co. Ltd., Navinfo and DigitalGlobe, the Colorado-based owner of the WorldView and GeoEye commercial Earth observation satellites.<\/p>\n<p>The two distributors sell high-resolution imagery commercially in the Chinese market from China\u2019s own civilian-operated remote sensing observatories and international satellites like the WorldView and GeoEye series, South Korea\u2019s Kompsat family of spacecraft, Japan\u2019s ALOS satellite, the Spanish-owned Deimos missions, and Kazakhstan\u2019s KazEOSat 1 Earth observation platform.<\/p>\n<p>The SuperView 1 satellites \u2014 if they can be salvaged and commissioned \u2014 would have given China its own commercial imaging spacecraft.<\/p>\n<p>Two more SuperView satellites are scheduled to launch in mid-2017, and Siwei Star aims to have a fleet of more than two dozen Earth observation craft in orbit by 2022, including 16 SuperView-type optical satellites, four platforms with even better optical imaging capabilities, four X-band synthetic aperture radar satellites to observe through clouds and darkness, and multiple video and hyperspectral imaging spacecraft.<\/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>Two commercial Earth-imaging satellites launched by a Chinese Long March 2D booster Wednesday are flying in lower-than-planned orbits after an apparent rocket mishap, according to tracking data published by the U.S. military. The two SuperView 1, or Gaojing 1, satellites are flying in egg-shaped orbits ranging from 133 miles (214 kilometers) to 325 miles (524 [&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":[2412,3075,135,1806,159,205,2184,3076],"class_list":["post-14975","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-amateur-radio","tag-beijing-space-view","tag-china","tag-digitalglobe","tag-earth-observation","tag-long-march","tag-long-march-2d","tag-superview-1"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14975"}],"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=14975"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14975\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14975"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14975"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14975"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}