On July 3 at 3:10 am UTC, a Long March 3B rocket launched from Taiyuan carrying two satellites to orbit.

The biggest payload of this launch was a multimode Gaofen, which is China’s “first optical remote sensing satellite with a sub-meter civilian resolution and multiple agile imaging modes,” according to a WeChat post by China Academy of Space Technology. The post went on to share that it will be mainly used for acquiring high-resolution images of China’s land and surrounding areas, mainly serving natural resources, emergency management, agriculture and rural areas, ecological environment, housing, forestry and grasslands, etc.

The passenger satellite was a CubeSat built by a group of middle schoolers.  

Good news for Chinese cows: this particular rocket had multiple modifications made to it, including what the Shanghai Aerospace reports as “precise landing zone control technology.”  For those of you wanting specifics, the technology involved yaw maneuvers being performed to change the path of each stage, making it possible to avoid populated areas.  Once each stage is separated, it’s turned sideways a bit to use the air to help guide it to a designated spot, instead of trusting to luck.

More Information

CAST WeChat article (Chinese)

Shanghai Aerospace WeChat article (Chinese)

Xinhua news article (Chinese)

Spaceflight Now article