Cosmic Penguin
Geek Penguin in GTO
Note from editor: Well...I was quite busy last month and up till now, so I have left out all 3 Chinese satellite launches in November till now. I apologize if this confuses you guys. :embarrassed:
Continuing a long stream of Chinese spysats launching into space, a Long March 2D rocket roars into the skies over the Gobi Desert on November 20 at 07:12 UTC from the second pad of LC-4 at Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center, right on the day that Shenzhou 1 flew into history just meters away from the much more famous 1st launch pad 15 years ago. This time though, the passenger isn't entirely something new. YG-24 marks the return of one of China's longest serving spysat series - its 640 km high polar orbit is almost exactly the same as 4 other remarkably similar optical satellites. This series started with YG-2 launching in May 2007, and includes YG-4 (December 2008), YG-7 (December 2009) and YG-11 (September 2010). Given the 4 year gap from the last satellite though, it seems that it may have carried some better telescopes. But only the mystic Chinese will know the truth...... :shifty:
In an extraordinary sequence of events, we would see yet ANOTHER satellite launch from Jiuquan the day after! That one, however, would warrant a separate thread.....
NASASpaceflight.com: Long March 2D lofts Yaogan Weixing-24 for China
Continuing a long stream of Chinese spysats launching into space, a Long March 2D rocket roars into the skies over the Gobi Desert on November 20 at 07:12 UTC from the second pad of LC-4 at Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center, right on the day that Shenzhou 1 flew into history just meters away from the much more famous 1st launch pad 15 years ago. This time though, the passenger isn't entirely something new. YG-24 marks the return of one of China's longest serving spysat series - its 640 km high polar orbit is almost exactly the same as 4 other remarkably similar optical satellites. This series started with YG-2 launching in May 2007, and includes YG-4 (December 2008), YG-7 (December 2009) and YG-11 (September 2010). Given the 4 year gap from the last satellite though, it seems that it may have carried some better telescopes. But only the mystic Chinese will know the truth...... :shifty:
In an extraordinary sequence of events, we would see yet ANOTHER satellite launch from Jiuquan the day after! That one, however, would warrant a separate thread.....
NASASpaceflight.com: Long March 2D lofts Yaogan Weixing-24 for China
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