Tag: China
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China launches ambitious mission to return lunar material to Earth
A Long March 5 rocket lifts off from the Wenchang launch center Monday. Credit: CNSA/CLEP A heavy-lift Long March 5 rocket hurled a 9-ton Chinese spacecraft toward the moon Monday on a 23-day mission attempting to return lunar samples to Earth for the first time in 44 years. The nearly 20-story rocket fired off its…
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China set to attempt first lunar sample return mission in four decades
A Chinese Long March 5 rocket rolls out of its assembly building at the Wenchang launch base Nov. 17 with the Chang’e 5 spacecraft. Credit: CASC/CLEP Chinese scientists and engineers are counting down to launch of a heavy-lift Long March 5 rocket Monday with the Chang’e 5 mission, an ambitious attempt to land on the…
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China launches mobile telecom satellite
A Long March 3B rocket takes off with the Tiantong 1-02 communications satellite. Credit: Xinhua A new Chinese mobile communications satellite launched Thursday on top of a Long March 3B rocket, joining a similar spacecraft launched four years ago to provide voice and data services to users on the go. The Tiantong 1-02 mobile communications…
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New Chinese rocket successful in debut launch
Galactic Energy’s Ceres 1 rocket lifts off from the Jiuquan launch base in northwestern China on Saturday. Credit: Xinhua A new four-stage rocket operated by the Chinese launch company Galactic Energy succeeded on its inaugural flight Saturday, delivering a data relay microsatellite to an orbit 300 miles (500 kilometers) above Earth. The Ceres 1 rocket…
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Introducing China’s new commercial rocket, Ceres-1
China’s latest commercial rocket, the Ceres-1 (Gushenxing-1) launch vehicle, has conducted its maiden launch this weekend, orbiting the Tianqi-11 satellite. Chinese company Galactic Energy conducted the launch on Saturday morning at 07:12 UTC from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center. The Galactic Energy, also designated Beijing Xinghe Dongli Space Technology Co. Ltd., is one of several…
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Ten Satellogic Earth-imaging satellites successfully launched
A Long March 6 rocket lifts off Friday from the Taiyuan space center in northeastern China. Credit: Xinhua Ten small high-resolution observation satellites for Satellogic — an Argentine company in the midst of deploying a fleet of Earth-imaging spacecraft — successfully launched Friday on a Chinese Long March 6 rocket. Three small Chinese secondary accompanied…
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China launches new Yaogan-30 group of military satellites
China launched a new group of triplet satellites for the Chuangxin-5 (CX-5) constellation on Monday. Launched under the name Yaogan Weixing-30 Group-7, the three satellites were orbited by a Chang Zheng-2C launch vehicle from the LC-3 Launch Complex of the Xichang Satellite Launch Center, with launch taking place at 15:19 UTC. Like the previous missions…
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China launches three military spy satellites
A Long March 2C rocket takes off Monday from the Xichang launch base in China. Credit: Xinhua Three mysterious payloads widely believed to be signals intelligence satellites for the Chinese military rocketed into orbit on top of a Long March 2C booster Monday from a launch base in southwestern China. The three Yaogan 30-type satellites…
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China launches geosynchronous Earth observation satellite
A Long March 3B rocket lifts off Sunday with the Gaofen 13 Earth observation satellite. Credit: CALT China successfully launched a Gaofen optical observation satellite Sunday toward a perch more than 22,000 miles over the equator, where it will use an Earth-facing telescope to collect remote sensing images, Chinese state media said. The Gaofen 13…
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China’s Mars-bound probe returns self-portrait from deep space
A camera ejected from China’s Tianwen 1 spacecraft on the way to Mars captured this view of the probe in deep space. Credit: China National Space Administration China’s space agency has released images captured by a small camera ejected from the country’s first Mars-bound spacecraft, showing the probe in deep space as it nears the…