China’s Long March 2C rocket launches two Earth observation satellites
China yesterday successfully launched two Earth observation satellites using its Long March 2C rocket.
Since these were launched from one of China’s interior spaceports, the rocket’s first stage fell somewhere in China. No word if it used parachutes or grid fins to control that landing. Also, weather yesterday forced the scrub of a launch of China’s Long March 11 solid rocket from a sea-based launch platform. That launch has been rescheduled for tomorrow.
The leaders in the 2022 launch race:
16 SpaceX
12 China
5 Russia
2 ULA
2 Rocket Lab.
The U.S. presently leads China 23 to 12 in the national rankings. Since there are two U.S. launches scheduled for later today, as well as a Russian and Chinese launch pending, these numbers will change in the next 24 hours.
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The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
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China yesterday successfully launched two Earth observation satellites using its Long March 2C rocket.
Since these were launched from one of China’s interior spaceports, the rocket’s first stage fell somewhere in China. No word if it used parachutes or grid fins to control that landing. Also, weather yesterday forced the scrub of a launch of China’s Long March 11 solid rocket from a sea-based launch platform. That launch has been rescheduled for tomorrow.
The leaders in the 2022 launch race:
16 SpaceX
12 China
5 Russia
2 ULA
2 Rocket Lab.
The U.S. presently leads China 23 to 12 in the national rankings. Since there are two U.S. launches scheduled for later today, as well as a Russian and Chinese launch pending, these numbers will change in the next 24 hours.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
I have one beef about referring to these rockets as “Long March”. Sure, it’s the name the native builders gave it, but our usage of it commemorates and dignifies a murderous rise to power of a regime with a long history of killing that continues to this day. It would be like the Germans building an orbital rocket and calling it Mein Kampf 1. NATO had a good convention of attaching code names to the scores of Soviet rockets built during the Cold War. One of my favorites was referring to the powerful nuclear SS-18 as the Satan missile. Given the Chicoms well-documented history of stealing our missile technology over the years, I suggest we stop referring to the Long March family, and start calling a member, for example, Shoplifter 11.