{"id":15529,"date":"2016-05-15T23:21:59","date_gmt":"2016-05-15T15:21:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp-productionenv-bjg9h2g2bgg5b8aa.southeastasia-01.azurewebsites.net\/news\/chinese-rocket-lofts-government-surveillance-satellite\/"},"modified":"2016-05-15T23:21:59","modified_gmt":"2016-05-15T15:21:59","slug":"chinese-rocket-lofts-government-surveillance-satellite","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/news\/chinese-rocket-lofts-government-surveillance-satellite\/","title":{"rendered":"Chinese rocket lofts government surveillance satellite"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure id=\"attachment_15061\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-15061\" style=\"width: 675px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" class=\" wp-image-15061\" src=\"http:\/\/spaceflightnow.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/05\/135360215_14632923481761n.jpg\" alt=\"A Long March 2D rocket blasted off at 0243 GMT Sunday (10:43 p.m. EDT Saturday) from the Jiuquan space center. Credit: Xinhua\" width=\"675\" height=\"451\" srcset=\"https:\/\/spaceflightnow.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/05\/135360215_14632923481761n.jpg 899w, https:\/\/spaceflightnow.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/05\/135360215_14632923481761n-300x200.jpg 300w, https:\/\/spaceflightnow.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/05\/135360215_14632923481761n-768x513.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 675px) 100vw, 675px\"><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-15061\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">A Long March 2D rocket blasted off at 0243 GMT Sunday (10:43 p.m. EDT Saturday) from the Jiuquan space center. Credit: Xinhua<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>A Long March 2D booster fired into space Sunday from a remote Chinese spaceport in the Gobi Desert, delivering a military spy satellite to a 640-kilometer-high (400-mile) perch in polar orbit.<\/p>\n<p>The two-stage Long March 2D rocket took off at 0243 GMT Sunday (10:43 p.m. EDT Saturday) from the Jiuquan launch center in northwest China\u2019s Inner Mongolia province.<\/p>\n<p>The liftoff occurred at 10:43 a.m. Beijing time, according to China\u2019s state-run Xinhua news agency.<\/p>\n<p>The 41-meter (134-foot-tall) liquid-fueled rocket veered south from Jiuquan to put its payload into a sun-synchronous orbit. Tracking data released by the U.S. military indicated the spacecraft reached an orbit with an apogee, or high point, of about 653 kilometers (405 miles), and a low point, or perigee of 625 kilometers (388 miles).<\/p>\n<p>The orbit is inclined 98.1 degrees to the equator, ensuring the satellite covers the entire planet.<\/p>\n<p>Xinhua reported the spacecraft aboard Sunday\u2019s launch was Yaogan 30, a remote sensing satellite that&nbsp;\u201cwill be used for experiments, land surveys, crop yield estimates and disaster relief.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Western analysts believe the Yaogan satellites series is a fleet of Chinese intelligence-gathering spacecraft. The parameters of Yaogan 30\u2019s launch, including its launch site, rocket booster and orbit, match those of five previous launches in 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010 and 2014.<\/p>\n<p>Those missions lofted high-resolution optical spy satellites into orbit, and experts believe Yaogan 30 shares the same purpose.<\/p>\n<p>China did not officially announce Sunday\u2019s launch in advance, keeping with the country\u2019s standard practice for military space missions.<\/p>\n<p>Sunday\u2019s flight marked China\u2019s fifth space launch of the year, and the 29th orbital launch attempt worldwide in 2016.<\/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 blasted off at 0243 GMT Sunday (10:43 p.m. EDT Saturday) from the Jiuquan space center. Credit: Xinhua A Long March 2D booster fired into space Sunday from a remote Chinese spaceport in the Gobi Desert, delivering a military spy satellite to a 640-kilometer-high (400-mile) perch in polar orbit. The two-stage [&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":[135,1578,205,2184,1742,1743],"class_list":["post-15529","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-china","tag-jiuquan","tag-long-march","tag-long-march-2d","tag-yaogan","tag-yaogan-30"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15529"}],"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=15529"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15529\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15529"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15529"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15529"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}