Jiuquan

A land imaging satellite soared to a 300-mile-high perch above Earth Saturday after lifting off on top of a Long March 2D rocket from the Jiuquan space base in the Gobi Desert, joining a similar military reconnaissance craft launched earlier this month in the same type of orbit.

A Long March 2D rocket boosted a Chinese military imaging satellite into a 300-mile-high orbit Sunday after liftoff from a remote launch base in the country’s northwestern frontier.