China launches technology test satellite
China today successfully launched a technology test satellite, its Long March 4C rocket lifting off from its Xichang spaceport in southwest China.
As is usual for China’s state-run press, little information about the satellite was released. The most information any article provided was this:
The satellite, designed and built by the Innovation Academy for Microsatellites under the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Shanghai, will measure and survey space environmental elements and test new technologies.
Nor did that state-run press provide any information about where the rocket’s lower stages, using very toxic hypergolic fuels, crashed inside China.
The leaders in the 2025 launch race:
84 SpaceX
36 China
10 Rocket Lab
7 Russia
SpaceX still leads the rest of the world in successful launches, 84 to 62.
China today successfully launched a technology test satellite, its Long March 4C rocket lifting off from its Xichang spaceport in southwest China.
As is usual for China’s state-run press, little information about the satellite was released. The most information any article provided was this:
The satellite, designed and built by the Innovation Academy for Microsatellites under the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Shanghai, will measure and survey space environmental elements and test new technologies.
Nor did that state-run press provide any information about where the rocket’s lower stages, using very toxic hypergolic fuels, crashed inside China.
The leaders in the 2025 launch race:
84 SpaceX
36 China
10 Rocket Lab
7 Russia
SpaceX still leads the rest of the world in successful launches, 84 to 62.