Two recent Chinese launches have been made from the Xichang Satellite Launch Center. The first launch was a large Long March 3B/E (CZ-B/E) rocket which launched at 1726 GMT on 12 August 2023. It put the Ludi-Tance-4 (01) radar satellite into a Geosynchronous Transfer Orbit (GTO) on its way to a final 36,000 km geostationary Earth orbit (GEO). This is thought to be the first time a high resolution synthetic aperture radar satellite has been confirmed as operating from this altitude.
At 0532 GMT on 14 August 2023, a Kuaizhou-1A solid rocket launch vehicle lifted off from the valley surrounded Xichang launch site carrying five HeDe-3 ship tracking (AIS) satellites for HEAD Aerospace.
At 0532 UTC today a Kuaizhou-1A solid rocket lifted off from Xichang carrying five HeDe-3 (A-E) ship and traffic AIS tracking satellites for HEAD Aerospace. This was China's 36th orbital launch of 2023. https://t.co/4Jafay1liL pic.twitter.com/Sjb0nZlSoe
— Andrew Jones (@AJ_FI) August 14, 2023
