Jiuquan – Spaceflight Now

New Chinese satellite launcher fails on first flight

July 10, 2020

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.

Chinese launches loft satellites to study space environment and observe Earth

July 6, 2020

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.

China launches Earth observation satellite

June 17, 2020

A Gaofen Earth-imaging satellite and two secondary payloads launched Wednesday aboard a Chinese Long March 2D rocket.

Two Chinese launches deploy satellites for Earth-imaging, tech demonstrations

June 1, 2020

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.

First two smallsats launched for Chinese data relay constellation

May 12, 2020

A Chinese Kuaizhou 1A rocket launched Tuesday with the first two spacecraft for China’s planned 80-satellite Xingyun communications and data relay constellation.

Kuaizhou 1A rocket lofts Chinese broadband test satellite

January 16, 2020

A solid-fueled Kuaizhou 1A launcher carried a commercial broadband communications satellite into orbit Thursday for Galaxy Space, a Chinese company that says it plans to launch up to 144 spacecraft for a space-based 5G network in the next few years.

Long March, Soyuz and Falcon rockets topped 2019’s launch leaderboard

January 2, 2020

China led the world with 34 orbital launch attempts in 2019 — including two failures — followed by 22 flights from Russian-operated launch pads and 21 satellite delivery missions originating from U.S. spaceports, all of which were successful.

China’s Kuaizhou launcher flies for second time in four days

November 19, 2019

Demonstrating a quick turnaround launch capability, China launched a light-class, solid-fueled Kuaizhou 1A rocket Sunday, four days after the same type of satellite booster fired into orbit from the same launch pad.

Two Chinese satellite launchers lift off three hours apart

November 13, 2019

Chinese rockets performed two satellite delivery missions in a three-hour span Wednesday, carrying a commercial Earth-imaging satellite and five mysterious surveillance payloads into orbit.

China launches environmental monitoring satellite

September 25, 2019

China launched a Long March 2D rocket Wednesday carrying a Yunhai environmental monitoring satellite into an orbit some 470 miles above Earth.