Cosmic Penguin
Geek Penguin in GTO
Marking the third Chinese launch in less than two weeks, a Long March 4B rocket send two new satellites into low Earth orbit today at 07:06 UTC. The launch originates from "China's Vandenberg", the Taiyuan Satellite Launch Center.
The big passenger is China's newest optical spysat, Yaogan 14. Being one of the largest ones ever launched by the Chinese, it was touted to have new capabilities for reconnaissance from its 500 km Sun-synchronous orbit.
Riding along for the 13 minutes journey is Tiantuo 1, a 9 kg nano-satellite built by the [ame="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_University_of_Defense_Technology"]National University of Defense Technology[/ame], a Chinese military institute most famous for building one of the fastest supercomputers in the world. The satellite will perform experiments on optical imaging, detection of on-orbit atomic oxygen intensity and receiving signals from the marine Automatic Identification System (AIS). It is the first Chinese nano-satellite that integrates the functions of satellite control, power distribution, data transfer and attitude control onto a single integrated electronic board.
This marks the seventh Long March series launch of the year, more than any other launcher. But beware of the fast pace - this is only one-third of the announced launch plans in 2012!
NASASpaceflight.com: China increases the pace with Long March 4B spy satellite launch
Photos:
Launch news report (in Chinese)
Discussion threads:
http://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=28563.0
http://www.9ifly.cn/thread-8676-1-1.html (in Chinese)
The big passenger is China's newest optical spysat, Yaogan 14. Being one of the largest ones ever launched by the Chinese, it was touted to have new capabilities for reconnaissance from its 500 km Sun-synchronous orbit.
Riding along for the 13 minutes journey is Tiantuo 1, a 9 kg nano-satellite built by the [ame="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_University_of_Defense_Technology"]National University of Defense Technology[/ame], a Chinese military institute most famous for building one of the fastest supercomputers in the world. The satellite will perform experiments on optical imaging, detection of on-orbit atomic oxygen intensity and receiving signals from the marine Automatic Identification System (AIS). It is the first Chinese nano-satellite that integrates the functions of satellite control, power distribution, data transfer and attitude control onto a single integrated electronic board.
This marks the seventh Long March series launch of the year, more than any other launcher. But beware of the fast pace - this is only one-third of the announced launch plans in 2012!
NASASpaceflight.com: China increases the pace with Long March 4B spy satellite launch
Photos:
Launch news report (in Chinese)
Discussion threads:
http://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=28563.0
http://www.9ifly.cn/thread-8676-1-1.html (in Chinese)
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