China launched four rockets within a week’s time. Here’s a quick rundown of them.

On July 3 at 02:51 UTC, a Chinese Long March 2D successfully launched the Jilin-01 Wideband satellite, three Jilin-03A Gaofen satellites, and a 5th satellite called Xīngshídài-10. All of the satellites in this launch have very similar missions, which can be summed up as remote sensing, land use, resource monitoring, and disaster management.

A couple of days later, on July 5 at 23:28 UTC, a Long March 4C launched the Fengyun 3E satellite from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center. Fengyun 3E was developed “for meteorological forecasting, climate prediction, environmental monitoring, and disaster prevention and mitigation.” It was launched into a special type of sun-synchronous orbit, with the orbital node passages at dawn and dusk instead of the typical morning or afternoon passage for such remote sensing satellites. This type of orbit is typical of radar imaging satellites, not optical satellites like Fengyun 3E. With a dawn-passing satellite and the typical morning and afternoon satellites, the Fengyun 3 constellation can provide complete global coverage of precipitation.

On July 6 at 15:55 UTC, a Long March 3C launched the Tianlian-5 spacecraft into a geostationary transfer orbit. Tianlian is the Chinese equivalent of NASA’s Tracking and Data Relay Satellite System, or TDRSS. Once Tianlian-5 reaches its slot in geostationary orbit, Tianlian-3, which launched in 2012, will be retired. The constellation is used to support communications between the Chinese Space Station, other satellites, and the ground when beyond the range of ground stations located in China.

A couple of days later on July 9th at 12:59 UTC, a Long March 6 launched from the Taiyuan Satellite Launch Center and added five satellites to the Zongzi 02 commercial remote sensing constellation, bringing the number of satellites in the constellation up to ten.

More Information

CASC Jilin-1 press release (Chinese)

CASC Fengyun-3E press release (Chinese)

CASC Tianlian-1 05 press release (Chinese)

Launch video

CASC Zhongzi press release (Chinese)

Zhongzi info page (Gunter’s Space Page)