China launched what it describes as an experimental communications expertise satellite tv for pc late final week.
A Lengthy March 7A rocket lifted off from the coastal Wenchang Satellite tv for pc Launch Middle at 10:54 a.m. EDT (1454 GMT, or 10:54 p.m. Beijing Time) on Friday (Nov. 3). The payload was revealed to be Tongxin Jishu Shiyan Weixing-10 (TJS-10) by the state-owned China Aerospace Science and Expertise Company (CASC) when the group announced launch success inside an hour of liftoff.
Chinese language state media outlet Xinhua described the satellite tv for pc as being “primarily used for multi-band and high-speed communication expertise experiments.”
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The satellite tv for pc is in a geosynchronous switch orbit (GTO) and can insert itself into the geostationary belt, round 22,236 miles (35,786 kilometers) above Earth, within the close to future.
Neither CASC nor state media offered any extra particulars of the satellite tv for pc. The lack of expertise and on-orbit actions of TJS satellites have caught the eye of analysts and could also be a canopy identify for satellites for a variety of various makes use of.
TJS-3, each nominally and described as a communication check satellite tv for pc, launched in December 2018. It has, nevertheless, apparently made shut approaches to, and checked out, satellites owned by different international locations. Different satellites within the TJS collection are speculated to be for indicators intelligence and missile early warning checks.
The satellite tv for pc was, like earlier TJS satellites, developed by the Shanghai Academy of Spaceflight Expertise (SAST), one of many main house subsidiaries of CASC.
The Lengthy March 7A is a 197-foot-tall (60 meters) variant of the Lengthy March 7 rocket and is designed to ship spacecraft into GTO. It’s also a unhazardous various to the workhorse Lengthy March 3B. The usual Lengthy March 7 is used to ship cargo spacecraft to China’s Tiangong house station.
Friday’s launch was China’s 51st of the yr. Chinese language plans launched early this yr point out that the nation is aiming to launch greater than 200 spacecraft on round 70 missions throughout 2023.
