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China’s Long March 2D rocket launches Earth observation satellite

China yesterday used its Long March 2D rocket to successfully launch an Earth observation satellite plus two smallsats into orbit.

The leaders in the 2020 launch race:

20 China
13 SpaceX
9 Russia
4 ULA

The U.S. still leads China 21 to 20 in the national rankings.

Genesis cover

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.


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"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

3 comments

  • LocalFluff

    Wiki tells me that the previous 2D launched as late as August 6th. With 3½ tons to LEO it has about half the payload capacity of a Soyuz launcher. So a bit too small for launching traditional sats to GEO, but good for Earth observation sats in low polar orbit.

  • wayne

    So, is “Earth observation satellite” chinese-communist double-speak, for surveillance-satellite?

  • LocalFluff

    @wayne
    They might have good reasons to take a look at the catastrophic floods in recent weeks that made some their damns burst, and other damns tremble. After having lost most of their crops, and previously most of their pigs in a disease (China is the by far largest pork producer in the world), they are probably also interested in watching what’s left of their agricultural sector. Even in the best of seasons China is dependent on food imports.

    What defeated Germany in ww1? Oh yeah, food shortages.

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