China Conducts 2 Launches in 6 Hours From Same Spaceport
China launched two Kuaizhou-1A (KZ-1A) rockets with a total of seven satellites aboard within six hours of each other from the Taiyuan Satellite Launch Center on Saturday.
The first rocket placed the Jilin-1 Gaofen 02B remote sensing satellite into orbit. Plans call for an initial constellation of 60 Jilin satellites in order, with the number growing to 138 by 2030.
The second launch carried six satellites:
HEAD-2A and HEAD-2B — The first two satellites in the Skywalker Constellation, which is designed to provide environmental monitoring, emergency communications, and material supervision for ships and aircraft. The satellites belong to the HEAD Aerospace Technology Co. of Beijing.
Spacety-16 and Spacety-17 — The medium-resolution remote sensing satellites will provide agricultural, disaster, maritime and polar equipment monitoring services. They were developed by the Changsha Tianyi Space Science and Technology Research Institute Co. for Spacety Co.
Tianqi-4A and Tianqi-4B — The Internet of Things satellites will provide data transmission, emergency communications and material tracking. The spacecraft are operated by Guodian Gaoke.
Launches of the solid-fuel KZ-1A booster are managed by Expace, which is a subsidiary of the China Aerospace Science and Industry Corporation. The rocket is used to launch small satellites.
3 responses to “China Conducts 2 Launches in 6 Hours From Same Spaceport”
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Wow, the Chinese are operating a Soviet like tempo. I need to start putting together a picture of what’s going up.
A multi stage solid fueled rocket with post boost bus carrying multiple payloads launching from a road mobile TEL. The Kuaizhou-1A is really a ballistic missile that can be also launch small satellites. Since it was developed from the DF-21 IRBM.
The USAF use to have some Minuteman ICBM configured as emergency satellite launchers. That fulfilled the same role as the Kuaizhou-1A. Currently re-furbished Minuteman ICBM motors are used in the Minotaur I launcher for non-commercial US launches
Fast turnaround. USAF should check what they are doing. But that is SRB. Was it the same launchpad? It says space center.