China on Wednesday sent a new satellite (Tianxing-1) into space from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in northwest China.
The Tianxing-1 test satellite was launched by a Kuaizhou-1A carrier rocket at 10:08 a.m. (Beijing Time) and entered the planned orbit.
The satellite is mainly used for experiments such as space environment detection.
It was the 15th flight mission of the Kuaizhou-1A rockets, according to the launch centre.
On January 9, 2017, Kuaizhou-1A conducted its first commercial launch mission. It is a small solid carrier rocket launched by ExPace, a Chinese space rocket company. The rocket has an international universal interface, and it mainly provides launch services for 300kg LEO small satellites.
ExPace was established on February 16 of 2016 by the China Aerospace Science and Industry Corporation (CASIC) to seize the opportunities for commercial aerospace development. The first stage of Expace’s AIT centre in Wuhan has been put into use, mainly for final assembly tests of the Kuaizhou family of solid carrier rockets, and it now has the final assembly test capability of 20 solid launch vehicles per year.
