Under the shadow of the much publicised NASA SLS launch a commercial Chinese rocket has carried five satellites into LEO. The mission lifted-off at 0620 GMT on 16 November from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center. Onboard the Ceres-1 (Gushenxing-1) small launch vehicle were five Jilin-1 Gaofen 03D Earth Observation microsatellites built by Chang Guang Satellite Technology Co., Ltd (CGSTL).
This marks the fourth consecutive successful launch of the rocket giving it a 100 per cent success rate since its maiden flight in 2020. The builder of the rocket is Beijing Xinghe Dongli Space Technology Co. Ltd, better known as Galactic Energy or Galactic Power.
The Ceres-1 rocket lifts-off from Jiuquan. Courtesy of Xinhua/Wang Jiangbo
