China launched a Long March-2D rocket on Wednesday, placing a satellite into orbit, according to a state news agency report.
Coded Beijing-3B, the satellite was lifted at 11:01 am (Beijing Time) from the Taiyuan Satellite Launch Center in the northern province of Shanxi and soon entered its preset orbit.
It will mainly be used to provide remote-sensing services in the fields of land resources management, agricultural resources survey, environmental monitoring and city applications. It was the 434th flight mission of China’s indigenously-built Long March rocket series. The term “remote-sensing” refers to the use of satellite- or aircraft-based sensor technologies to detect and classify objects on Earth. This includes the Earth’s surface, atmosphere and oceans, based on propagated signals (e.g., electromagnetic radiation).
On August 20, the Long March-2D rocket blasted off from the Xichang Satellite Launch Center in Sichuan province to place the Yaogan 35-04 satellites, the fourth group of spacecraft in the Yaogan 35 remote-sensing network. This was the 433rd flight of the Long March rocket fleet.
In July, China launched a new group of remote sensing satellites from the Xichang Satellite Launch Center in southwest China's Sichuan province.
The satellites were successfully launched as the third group of the Yaogan-35 family by a Long March-2D carrier rocket and entered the planned orbit.
The satellites will be mainly used to conduct scientific experiments, land resource surveys, agricultural product yield estimation, and disaster prevention and reduction reviews. This launch marked the 429th mission for the Long March series carrier rockets.
China launched the first and second groups of Yaogan-35 satellites on November 6, 2021, and June 23, 2022, respectively.
The Long March-2D, also called the Chang Zheng-2D, CZ-2D and LM-2D, is a two-stage orbital carrier rocket mainly used for launching LEO and SSO satellites. The Long March-2D made its maiden flight on August 9, 1992. It was initially used to launch FSW-2 and FSW-3 reconnaissance satellites.