The Long March-8 Y2 rocket carrying 22 satellites blasts off from
Wenchang Spacecraft Launch Site in south China's Hainan Province,
February 27, 2022. Photo by Xinhua The Long March-8 carrier rocket, which sent 22 satellites
into orbit in a single ride in a record-setting mission last Sunday,
will undertake launch missions for the construction of a satellite
communication network, according to Pan Aihua, chief engineer of the
China National Space Administration. Pan told China Media Group
that the Long March-8 rocket perfectly fits the current market demand of
launching satellites to low Earth orbit (LEO) and medium Earth orbit
(MEO). As China's new generation medium-lift launch vehicle, the
Long March-8 is mainly designed to send 3.5 to 5 tonnes of payloads to
sun-synchronous orbit (SSO) at altitudes between 500 and 1,000
kilometers. Such rockets are urgently needed by the market, according to Wu Yitian, deputy chief designer of the rocket. Twenty-two is China's new record for the most satellites launched by a single rocket. Before
Sunday's mission, the domestic record was held by the first flight of a
Long March-6 in September 2015, which deployed 20 satellites. The world
record is held by SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket, which sent 143 satellites
in one ride in January 2021. "We are building the Xingwang
(literally, "star network") project, so the number of satellites to be
launched will greatly increase in the future, and it's significant to
improve the launch efficiency," Pan said, without further elaboration on
the project. U.S. company SpaceX's Starlink has already deployed
some 2,000 satellites, and the company aims to expand it to 42,000.
Britain's OneWeb has launched 428 satellites, and it plans to build and
operate 650 satellites to provide global internet coverage from space.
China to use Long March-8 rocket for its satellite network launch missions
Editor:阮梓峰
Source:CGTN
Updated:2022-03-04 16:30:34
Source:CGTN
Updated:2022-03-04 16:30:34
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