China Long March 2D Rocket Launch: Earth Observation Satellite for Pakistan

 China Long March 2D Rocket Launch: Earth Observation Satellite for Pakistan

A China Long March 2D (CZ2D) rocket blasted off at 12:07 p.m. Beijing time on Jan. 17, 2025, from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in the Gobi Desert located in northwest China under clear blue skies. This launch successfully sent three satellites into orbit, including Pakistan's PRSC-EO1 Earth observation satellite, alongside the Tianlu-1 & Lantan-1 commercial satellites. PRSC-EO1 is the first satellite for Pakistan's new remote sensing satellite constellation.

This was 556th launch of China's Long March rocket family. Orange exhaust billowed out as the hypergolic launcher ignited its engines on the rocket's first stage. 

Note: The tiles visibly detaching are insulation tiles for keeping upper stage rocket propellants cold on the launch pad. Once the rocket launches, this unnecessary mass is safely discarded above the spaceport.

PRSC-EO1 is the first of a series of three optical remote sensing satellites for Pakistan. It joined the country’s existing remote sensing satellites, PRSS-1 and PakTES-1A, in orbit. These satellites provide data for the fields of land mapping, agriculture classification and assessment, urban and rural planning, environmental monitoring, natural disaster monitoring and management, surveying, natural resources protection and others uses, according to Pakistan's space agency, SUPARCO.

The China Great Wall Industry Corporation (CGWIC), under the China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation (CASC), arranged the combination of the international and domestic payloads. CGWIC signed a multi-launch service contract with Pakistan’s Space and Upper Atmosphere Research Commission (SUPARCO) for launch of a remote sensing satellite constellation in 2022.

China and Pakistan are close space partners. For example, Pakistan joined China’s International Lunar Research Station (ILRS) Moon project in October 2023.

This mission carried two Chinese commercial satellites: the DAO-1 (Tianlu-1) satellite, developed by Galaxy Space for the Jianghuai Frontier Innovation Technology Center, and the Blue Carbon-1 (Lantan-1) satellite, developed by Geespace, also known as Zhejiang Shikong Daoyu Technology Co., Ltd., for Hangzhou Dianzi University.

The launch was China’s third orbital launch of the year at that time. It followed the launch of the Shijian-25 spacecraft servicing satellite Jan. 6, and the sea launch of 10 navigation augmentation satellites Jan. 13.

As of Jan. 17, 2025, CASC had not yet published an overview of China’s overall plans for the year, but it may once again attempt to reach around 100 launches, as targeted for 2024. Major missions for 2025 include crewed Shenzhou-20 and -21 missions and Tianzhou cargo spacecraft to the Tiangong space station and the Tianwen-2 near-Earth asteroid sample return mission. The latter is expected to launch around May.

China aims to debut a number of new Long March and potentially reusable commercial rockets during 2025. These include the Long March 8A and 12A, and Zhuque-3 (Landspace), Tianlong-3 (Space Pioneer), Pallas-1 (Galactic Energy) and Kinetica-2 (CAS Space) from commercial entities.

Image Credit: CGTN

Article Credit: Space News/Andrew Jones
Release Date: Jan. 17, 2025

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