While the world was occupied with SpaceX’s successful launch of its manned Crew Dragon space capsule to the International Space Station on May 30, China was quietly making space strides of its own – launching two new technology-demonstrating satellites at 4:13 a.m. Beijing time on May 30 (4:13 p.m. EDT).
“Peng Kunya, a chief designer of the Long March-11, said that it was the first time that the Long March-11 was launched from the Xichang Satellite Launch Center, proving its adaptability to different launch sites,” CCTV said in its report, according to Space.com.
About 36 hours later, a Long March-2D rocket blasted off from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in the country’s northwest region on May 31 at 4:53 p.m. Beijing time (4:53 a.m. EDT). One of the satellites on the Jiuquan launch was Gaofen-9. The civilian remote-sensing satellite has an imaging resolution of roughly 3.3 feet (1 meter), said state-sponsored media outlet Xinhua.
The second satellite on the May 31 launch is owned by Beijing-based HEAD Aerospace. The HEAD 4 satellite is a small spacecraft and joins a fleet of satellites providing tracking of ships and aircraft, environmental monitoring, and asset supervision services.
China was quite busy in 2019, occasionally launching rockets just hours apart. The pace of rocket launches slowed down in the first part of 2020 due to the coronavirus pandemic. However, since February, China has resumed some spaceflight activities with physical distancing protocols. Earlier in May, China launched two other satellites to support IoT services.
