China successfully put its earth resource satellite, the third of ZY-2, into the orbit with a Chinese Long-March 4-B rocket that blasted off at 11:10 AM Saturday from the Taiyuan Satellite Launch Center in north China's Shanxi Province.

The rocket and satellite separated 12 minutes after the rocket blasts off. The satellite has entered into orbit as scheduled, according to the data from Chinese ground controller, the Xi'an Satellite Monitor and Control Center, in northwest China, indicating the success of the launch.

The ZY-2, China's second transmitting-type remote sensing satellite, is mainly used for land resource surveying, environmental supervision and protection, city planning, crop yield assessment, disaster monitoring and space scientific experiment.

China has sent the first and second ZY-2 satellites on September 1,2000 and October 27 2002. They are still running in the orbit and have sent back plenty of data.

Compared with the previous two resource satellites, the third one has improved in overall performance and technology.

The Long-March 4-B carrier rocket is an upgraded version of the Long-March 4-A. The launch is the 82nd time that Long March carriers have been used and it is also the 40th continuous successes since China launched the first of its kind on Oct. 1996.

 
(Xinhua News Agency November 6, 2004)