China launches new satellite group
Wire desk byline Sourced from Xinhua, Dawn, Arab News, Anadolu and Minute Mirror. Translated and abridged by the GSRRA Desk.
A Long March-2D carrier rocket carrying the PIESAT-2 09-12 satellites blasts off from the Taiyuan Satellite Launch Center in north China’s Shanxi Province, Dec. 17, 2024. The satellite group was launched at 2:50 a.m. (Beijing Time) on Tuesday and has entered the preset orbits successfully.
China sent a new group of satellites into space on Tuesday from the Taiyuan Satellite Launch Center in northern Shanxi Province.
Launched at 2:50 a.m. (Beijing Time) aboard a Long March-2D carrier rocket, the satellite group, the PIESAT-2 09-12 satellites, entered the preset orbits successfully.
The launch marks the 553rd flight mission of the Long March carrier rocket series.
The four Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) satellites, developed by private satellite maker GalaxySpace, feature superior capabilities, including all-day, all-weather, and high-resolution Earth observation.
According to Duan Xiao, chief designer of SAR satellite at GalaxySpace, multiple SAR satellites can improve revisit rates for various network applications, supporting high-resolution imaging, high-frequency observation, and regular global coverage.
This enables millimeter-level deformation measurements of targets like dams and bridges, serving applications such as land resources, earthquake monitoring, disaster prevention and mitigation, basic geographic information acquisition, and forestry, Duan said.
GalaxySpace has been continuously improving the overall development capabilities of SAR satellites, with eight batch-produced SAR satellites delivered so far, Duan added. ■
A Long March-2D carrier rocket carrying the PIESAT-2 09-12 satellites blasts off from the Taiyuan Satellite Launch Center in north China’s Shanxi Province, Dec. 17, 2024. The satellite group was launched at 2:50 a.m. (Beijing Time) on Tuesday and has entered the preset orbits successfully. (Photo by Guo Houze/Xinhua)
A Long March-2D carrier rocket carrying the PIESAT-2 09-12 satellites blasts off from the Taiyuan Satellite Launch Center in north China’s Shanxi Province, Dec. 17, 2024. The satellite group was launched at 2:50 a.m. (Beijing Time) on Tuesday and has entered the preset orbits successfully. (Photo by Guo Houze/Xinhua)
A Long March-2D carrier rocket carrying the PIESAT-2 09-12 satellites blasts off from the Taiyuan Satellite Launch Center in north China’s Shanxi Province, Dec. 17, 2024. The satellite group was launched at 2:50 a.m. (Beijing Time) on Tuesday and has entered the preset orbits successfully.
Reference Link:- https://english.news.cn/20241217/0f70c1c9135b47e799f594c8ef499b83/c.html
Zamir Ahmed Awan is the founder and Chair of the Global Silk Route Research Alliance, a think tank in Islamabad. He studied engineering at Shanghai University in the 1980s, and years later he went back to China as Pakistan's science counsellor in Beijing, from 2010 until 2016, working on science and higher education cooperation between the two countries.…
