China launches seven satellites into space

China launched a carrier rocket from a northwestern spaceport on Tuesday morning, sending seven satellites into orbit, according to China Aerospace Science and Technology Corp, the nation's leading space contractor.

The 43-meter-tall rocket blasted off at 11:21 am at the Taiyuan Satellite Launch Center in a mountainous region in Shanxi province and soon placed the satellites into their preset orbital positions, the State-owned conglomerate said in a news release.

Developed by the Shanghai Academy of Spaceflight Technology, the two-stage Long March 6C model has a diameter of 3.35 meters and is propelled by three engines consuming liquid oxygen and kerosene.

With an overall liftoff weight of 215 metric tons, the rocket is capable of transporting spacecraft with a combined weight of about 2.4 tons to a typical sun-synchronous orbit with an altitude of 500 kilometers, or 4 tons of payloads to a low-Earth orbit 300 km above the ground.

Three of the nine launched satellites — AirSat 14, AirSat 15 and Lingzhi-09 Thai CubeSat — were developed and built by Beijing-based commercial space firm GalaxySpace.

The Lingzhi-09 Thai CubeSat marks GalaxySpace's first export of a complete satellite and ground system to a foreign user. It is also the first time a Chinese commercial space enterprise has delivered a full-service package, covering satellite development, launch and in-orbit delivery, to a Southeast Asian nation, according to GalaxySpace.

The AirSat 14 and 15 satellites were built for AirSat, a satellite operator headquartered in Jinan, Shandong province. Fitted with high-resolution synthetic aperture radars and dedicated space-based cloud payloads, they are tasked with forming an integrated space-based information platform. The mission represents a key breakthrough for GalaxySpace in space-based computing.

To date, GalaxySpace has successfully launched more than 10 SAR satellites, bringing its total number of independently developed satellites to 49.