A Long March 2C rocket lifted off at 0357 GMT Friday (11:57 p.m. EDT Thursday) with three Yaogan 30 satellites for the Chinese military. The grid fins are visible on the gray section of the rocket at the top of the first stage. Credit: Xinhua
China launched a Long March 2C rocket Friday with three Yaogan 30 military satellites, and tested new grid fins on the Long March’s first stage to help guide the spent booster away from populated areas.
The two-stage Long March 2C rocket lifted off from the Xichang space center in southwestern China’s Sichuan province at 0357 GMT Friday (11:57 p.m. EDT Thursday), according to the China Academy of Launch Vehicle Technology, the country’s lead developer of satellite launchers.
Liftoff occurred at 11:57 a.m. Friday Beijing time.
Tracking data published by the U.S. military indicated the Long March 2C rocket achieved a 370-mile-high (600-kilometer) orbit with an inclination of 35 degrees to the equator. The orbit matches that of four previous triplets of Yaogan 30 satellites in late 2017 and early 2018, which also flew into space aboard Long March 2C rockets from Xichang.
Like it is predecessors, the exact purpose of the fifth group of Yaogan 30 satellites — designated Yaogan 30-05 — remains a secret. Information released by Chinese state media said the spacecraft are designed for “remote sensing” missions, and will be “used for electromagnetic environment detection and related technological tests.”
The Yaogan series of satellites are believed to be operated by the Chinese military for intelligence-gathering purposes.
Some analysts suggested the 12 Yaogan 30-01, 30-02, 30-03 and 30-04 satellites launched in 2017 and 2018 could be testing new electronic eavesdropping equipment or helping the Chinese military track U.S. and other foreign naval deployments.
But details about the spacecraft and their missions have not been disclosed by the Chinese government.
China’s military has another satellite named Yaogan 30, but it is in polar orbit and believed to be a high-resolution imaging spacecraft.
Images of the Long March 2C rocket launched Friday showed aerosurfaces attached to the interstage structure atop the first stage booster.
The fins have not flown on past Long March missions, and their appearance resembles the grid fins that fly on SpaceX’s Falcon rocket boosters.
In a post-launch statement, Chinese launch authorities said the mission tested the function of new aerodynamic control surfaces to help steer the booster on descent.
The new system is designed to control where the booster falls back to the ground. Rockets launched from China’s inland spaceports typically drop their stages, still containing toxic propellant vapors, near villages and towns.
Three Earth observation satellites for the Chinese government and a commercial Argentine startup launched Monday, entering an orbit 300 miles above Earth to begin mapping missions.
SpaceX plans two Falcon Heavy launches this year for the U.S. Space Force in July and October, and United Launch Alliance has four national security space missions on its 2021 schedule, according to a military spokesperson.
SpaceX’s first launch since August took off from Cape Canaveral at 9:56 a.m. EST (1456 GMT) to carry 60 broadband satellites into orbit for the company’s Starlink network. The Starlink satellites rode together on top of a Falcon 9 rocket with a previously-flown first stage and a reused payload fairing.
