The first flight of the new Chinese Kuaizhou 11 solid-fueled rocket failed to place two small satellites into orbit Friday, and Chinese state media said the cause of the malfunction is under investigation.
A high-power broadband communications satellite designed to provide Internet access to airliner passengers, cruise ships, fishing vessels, and other mobile users successfully launched Thursday aboard a Chinese Long March 3B rocket.
China launched a Long March 2D rocket Saturday with a satellite Chinese officials claimed will study the space environment and conduct technology demonstrations, less than two days after a Long March 4B rocket took off from a different launch site with an Earth-imaging payload.
A civilian-operated Chinese oceanography satellite deployed in orbit after lifting off on a Long March 2C rocket Wednesday, joining a predecessor launched in 2018 to monitor ocean color and water temperatures.
Two launches of Chinese rockets Friday and Sunday successfully placed Earth-imaging and technology demonstration satellites into orbit. The two missions, which took off from different spaceports, flew board Long March 11 and Long March 2D rockets.
A Chinese Kuaizhou 1A rocket launched Tuesday with the first two spacecraft for China’s planned 80-satellite Xingyun communications and data relay constellation.
A large rocket stage left in space after the successful launch of China’s heavy-lift Long March 5B rocket May 5 fell into the atmosphere Monday over the Atlantic Ocean, becoming the most massive object in nearly 30 years to perform an uncontrolled re-entry from orbit.
A Chinese rocket measuring around 100 feet long that launched earlier this month will likely plunge back into Earth’s atmosphere some time Monday, becoming the most massive object in decades to fall out of orbit in an uncontrolled manner.
A next-generation Chinese capsule designed to carry astronauts to the country’s planned space station, and eventually the moon, wrapped up a nearly three-day unpiloted orbital test flight Friday with a landing in northwestern China.