Cosmic Penguin
Geek Penguin in GTO
China will launch a communication satellite for Pakistan in about 2 hours time from now. (launch window is 1610 - 1643 UTC, or 0010 - 0043 local time on August 12) The Long March 3B rocket, currently China's heaviest model of their rocket fleet, will launch the Paksat-1R satellite for the government of Pakistan, from LC-2 of the Xichang Satellite Launch Center in south-western China. The comsat, which is based on China's premiere DFH-4 spacecraft bus, weighs 5115 kilograms and carries 12 C-band and 18 Ku-band transponders for services such as TV broadcasting and Internet access. This will replace the 15 year old Paksat-1, ironically launched by an American Atlas-2 rocket in 1996 and initially used by Indonesia.
This will be the 15th launch of the LM-3B, 13 of which were total successes.
Links:
Gunter's space Page: Paksat-1R
Project page by the China Great Wall Industry Corporation, the representative company of China for all foreign aerospace contracts
(in Chinese) Discussion thread for the launch on the 9ifly aerospace forum
NasaSpaceflight.com Forum discussion thread
---------- Post added 08-12-11 at 00:27 ---------- Previous post was 08-11-11 at 22:04 ----------
Apparently launched on-time. The third stage and the spacecraft should be in LEO by now...
---------- Post added at 01:32 ---------- Previous post was at 00:27 ----------
There's confirmation of a successful launch!
The rocket lifted off at 16:15:04 UTC and successfully carried Paksat-1R into a 204 X 41985 km X 24.8 deg. orbit 26 minutes after launch.
Launch press release (in Chinese): http://www.calt.com/xwzx/zyxw/20110812011440181cf5.html
This will be the 15th launch of the LM-3B, 13 of which were total successes.
Links:
Gunter's space Page: Paksat-1R
Project page by the China Great Wall Industry Corporation, the representative company of China for all foreign aerospace contracts
(in Chinese) Discussion thread for the launch on the 9ifly aerospace forum
NasaSpaceflight.com Forum discussion thread
---------- Post added 08-12-11 at 00:27 ---------- Previous post was 08-11-11 at 22:04 ----------
Apparently launched on-time. The third stage and the spacecraft should be in LEO by now...
---------- Post added at 01:32 ---------- Previous post was at 00:27 ----------
There's confirmation of a successful launch!
The rocket lifted off at 16:15:04 UTC and successfully carried Paksat-1R into a 204 X 41985 km X 24.8 deg. orbit 26 minutes after launch.Launch press release (in Chinese): http://www.calt.com/xwzx/zyxw/20110812011440181cf5.html
