{"id":15951,"date":"2015-11-03T19:34:42","date_gmt":"2015-11-03T11:34:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp-productionenv-bjg9h2g2bgg5b8aa.southeastasia-01.azurewebsites.net\/news\/military-communications-craft-likely-aboard-chinese-launch\/"},"modified":"2015-11-03T19:34:42","modified_gmt":"2015-11-03T11:34:42","slug":"military-communications-craft-likely-aboard-chinese-launch","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/news\/military-communications-craft-likely-aboard-chinese-launch\/","title":{"rendered":"Military communications craft likely aboard Chinese launch"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure id=\"attachment_10363\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-10363\" style=\"width: 622px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" class=\" wp-image-10363\" src=\"http:\/\/spaceflightnow.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/11\/lm3b_chinasat2c.jpg\" alt=\"A Long March 3B rocket carrying the Chinasat 2C communications satellite lifts off from the Xichang space center in southwest China's Sichuan province Tuesday. Credit: Xinhua\" width=\"622\" height=\"402\" srcset=\"https:\/\/spaceflightnow.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/11\/lm3b_chinasat2c.jpg 610w, https:\/\/spaceflightnow.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/11\/lm3b_chinasat2c-300x194.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 622px) 100vw, 622px\"><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-10363\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">A Long March 3B rocket carrying the Chinasat 2C communications satellite lifts off from the Xichang space center in southwest China\u2019s Sichuan province Tuesday. Credit: Xinhua<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>A Chinese Long March 3B rocket lifted off Tuesday from the country\u2019s Xichang space base, heading into orbit with a secretive payload believed by Western observers to be a military communications satellite.<\/p>\n<p>The Long March 3B rocket launched at 1625 GMT (11:25 a.m. EST) Tuesday with the Chinasat 2C communications satellite, according to a report by China\u2019s state-run Xinhua news agency. The official government-backed media outlet declared the launch a success.<\/p>\n<p>The rocket\u2019s upper stage deployed the Chinasat 2C payload into a geostationary transfer orbit ranging up to 35,839 kilometers (22,269 miles) above Earth, according to U.S. military tracking data shared online. The data indicated the orbit\u2019s low point, or perigee, was 194 kilometers (120 miles), with a path angled 27.1 degrees to the equator.<\/p>\n<p>Chinasat 2C\u2019s on-board propulsion system will circularize its orbit more than 35,000 kilometers, or about 22,000 miles, over the equator, where the satellite\u2019s velocity will match the rate of Earth\u2019s rotation. The satellite\u2019s planned communications coverage zone was not disclosed by Chinese authorities.<\/p>\n<p>Xinhua said Chinasat 2C, which was developed by the China Academy of Space Technology, \u201cwill provide radio, TV transmission and broadband services for the country\u2019s radio stations, TV stations, radio transmitting stations and cable networks.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Chinese media released no other information about the mission, which authorities did not announce in advance, besides the release of standard pre-flight warnings for pilots to avoid the area.<\/p>\n<p>Tuesday\u2019s mission was the 13th space launch of the year by China \u2014 all successful \u2014 and the 65th orbital launch attempt worldwide 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 carrying the Chinasat 2C communications satellite lifts off from the Xichang space center in southwest China\u2019s Sichuan province Tuesday. Credit: Xinhua A Chinese Long March 3B rocket lifted off Tuesday from the country\u2019s Xichang space base, heading into orbit with a secretive payload believed by Western observers to be a [&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":[135,2550,3910,205,1888,1611,1741],"class_list":["post-15951","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-china","tag-chinasat","tag-chinasat-2c","tag-long-march","tag-long-march-3b","tag-telecom","tag-xichang"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15951"}],"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=15951"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15951\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15951"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15951"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15951"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}