{"id":15874,"date":"2015-12-09T18:38:02","date_gmt":"2015-12-09T10:38:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp-productionenv-bjg9h2g2bgg5b8aa.southeastasia-01.azurewebsites.net\/news\/long-march-lofts-communications-craft-for-chinese-government\/"},"modified":"2015-12-09T18:38:02","modified_gmt":"2015-12-09T10:38:02","slug":"long-march-lofts-communications-craft-for-chinese-government","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/news\/long-march-lofts-communications-craft-for-chinese-government\/","title":{"rendered":"Long March lofts communications craft for Chinese government"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure id=\"attachment_11250\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-11250\" style=\"width: 620px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" class=\" wp-image-11250\" src=\"http:\/\/spaceflightnow.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/12\/lm3bchinasat1c_feature.png\" alt=\"A Long March 3B rocket lifted off at 1646 GMT (11:46 a.m. EST) Wednesday with the Chinasat 1C satellite. Credit: Xinhua\" width=\"620\" height=\"798\" srcset=\"https:\/\/spaceflightnow.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/12\/lm3bchinasat1c_feature.png 558w, https:\/\/spaceflightnow.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/12\/lm3bchinasat1c_feature-233x300.png 233w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 620px) 100vw, 620px\"><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-11250\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">A Long March 3B rocket lifted off at 1646 GMT (11:46 a.m. EST) Wednesday with the Chinasat 1C satellite. Credit: Xinhua<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>A Long March 3B rocket driven by four strap-on boosters blasted off Wednesday from the Xichang space base in southwestern China, successfully delivering a communications payload to orbit a half-hour later to likely begin service for the Chinese military.<\/p>\n<p>Nestled inside the Long March rocket\u2019s nose cone, the Chinasat 1C spacecraft launched at 1646 GMT (11:46 a.m. EST) Wednesday from Xichang, China\u2019s primary launch base for communications satellites, according to the official Xinhua news agency.<\/p>\n<p>Xinhua reported the satellite was built by the China Academy of Space Technology, a state enterprise that builds most of China\u2019s communications spacecraft. It is probably based on the DFH-4 satellite bus, the latest in the manufacturer\u2019s line of spacecraft platforms.<\/p>\n<p>Chinasat 1C will provide high-quality voice, data, radio and television transmission services, according to Xinhua.<\/p>\n<p>Western analysts believe the satellite is a follow-up to the launch of a similar craft named Chinasat 1A in September 2011, likely beaming secure communications signals for the Chinese military.<\/p>\n<p>Tracking data from the U.S. military showed Wednesday\u2019s Long March launch reached a geostationary transfer orbit with a high point about 35,800 kilometers (22,245 miles) above Earth and a low point of approximately 177 kilometers (111 miles). The orbit data indicated an inclination of about 27.1 degrees to the equator.<\/p>\n<p>Wednesday\u2019s mission was the 17th space launch of the year by China, and the 73rd space launch worldwide to reach orbit in 2015.<\/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 1646 GMT (11:46 a.m. EST) Wednesday with the Chinasat 1C satellite. Credit: Xinhua A Long March 3B rocket driven by four strap-on boosters blasted off Wednesday from the Xichang space base in southwestern China, successfully delivering a communications payload to orbit a half-hour later to likely begin [&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":[135,2550,3863,205,1888,1611,1741],"class_list":["post-15874","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-china","tag-chinasat","tag-chinasat-1c","tag-long-march","tag-long-march-3b","tag-telecom","tag-xichang"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15874"}],"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=15874"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15874\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15874"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15874"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15874"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}