China has successfully launched five small remote sensing satellites on top of a Long March 2D rocket into an orbit more than 330 miles above Earth.
The five spacecraft were all from Chinese companies and were operated using commercial business models. The lift-off took place at 0251 GMT Saturday from the Taiyuan launch base in Shanxi province located in northern China.
The launch was declared a success by the China Aerospace Science and Technology Corp. (CASC), the top government-owned enterprise in China’s Space program.
The two-stage Long March 2D rocket dropped its first stage over Chinese territory a few minutes after lift-off. A second stage deployed the five payloads into a near-circular polar orbit with an average altitude of around 333 miles (537 kilometers), at an inclination of about 97.5 degrees to the equator, according to tracking data published by the US military.
The Long March 2D rocket deployed four Jilin Earth Observation satellites for Chang Guang Satellite Technology Co. Ltd., a commercial remote sensing company based in China’s Jilin province. It has successfully launched 30 small remote sensing satellites into orbit since 2015.
One of the spacecrafts launched is designed for wide area observations; the Jilin 1 Kuanfu 01B satellite is designed to collect images along swathes greater than 90 miles (150 kilometers), supporting applications including land and resource management, mineral development, and urban planning, CASC said in a statement.
The launch also carried three Jilin 1 Gaofen, or high-resolution, Earth-imaging microsatellites. The fifth payload on Saturday’s launch was Xingshidai 10, another small satellite with an imaging instrument.
