China successfully put an earth resource satellite, the second ZY-2, into orbit with a Chinese Long-March 4-B carrier rocket that blasted off at 11:17 am Sunday from the Taiyuan Launching Center in north China's Shanxi Province.
Sources said the satellite is operating smoothly.
It was a sunny day when the launch was made. A little more than ten minutes later, the 45-m-long carrier rocket and the satellite were separated. Soon after that, the Satellite Monitoring Center in Xi'an, northwest China's Shaanxi Province, reported the satellite had entered its solar-synchronous orbit and was in good condition.
The new satellite is a transmitting-type remote sensing satellite developed by Chinese Institute of Space Technology under China Aerospace Science and Technology Company Group. It is mainly intended for territorial survey, environment monitoring and protection, urban planning, crop yield assessment, disaster monitoring and space scientific experiment.
China launched a satellite of the same type in September 2000, the first ZY-2 that is still operating normally in space. Chinese scientists said the new satellite is superior to the previous one in overall properties and technological level.
The Long-March 4-B carrier rocket is developed by Shanghai Aerospace Technology Research Institute under China Aerospace Science and Technology Company Group. It has made four successful launches before.
(Xinhua News Agency October 27, 2002)
