HELSINKI — China has launched a new batch of Yunhai-2 meteorological satellites likely for use by its military.
A Long March 2D with a Yuanzheng-3 upper stage rocket lifted off from Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in the Gobi Desert at 1:27 a.m. Eastern (0527 UTC) March 21. The China Aerospace Science and Technology Corp. (CASC), confirmed launch success around three hours later, also revealing the payloads for the mission to be the Yunhai-2 (02) batch of satellites.
The satellites were likely released into a series of orbits following a series of burns by the YZ-3 upper stage. The launch follows a similar mission from 2018 which saw a first group of six Yunhai-2 satellites put into orbit by a Long March 2D and YZ-3 combination.
These satellites are described only briefly as to be used mainly for atmospheric environment detection, space environment monitoring, disaster prevention and reduction, and scientific experiments, according to Chinese state media.
The Yunhai series are, however, assessed to be military meteorological satellites by some Western analysts. They are believed to use Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) Radio Occultation (GNSS-RO) to collect atmospheric data. GNSS-RO detects changes to GNSS signals as they pass through Earth’s atmosphere and ionosphere providing data useful for weather forecasting and atmospheric processes, ionospheric research and other areas.
Curiously, the first Yunhai-2 satellites, launched in late 2018, were inserted into initial, curricular orbits, with three orbiting at 520 km and another three at 1,095 km. However, all six are now in roughly circular 800 km orbits, either raising or lowering their orbits significantly in mid-2019.
The YZ-3 (“Expedition-3”) is equipped with a 5kN main engine and an autonomous navigation and guidance system. It can perform over 20 autonomous rapid orbital maneuvers. It is primarily for deploying multiple satellites into different orbits,…
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