China launches Yunhai satellite for “atmospheric and scientific experiments”

by | Nov 14, 2016 | China, Launches, Satellites, Science, Technology | 0 comments

Another satellite that China apparently describes as purely peaceful in purpose has been launched from the Jiuquan launch site by a Long March 2D/2 at 2314 GMT on 11 November 2016. The spacecraft, which is thought to be sized in the 1,000-1,500 kg range is called Yunhai-1. Little is known of the spacecraft except that it has been placed into a new polar sun-synchronous orbit.

Western analysts speculate that Yunhai-1 (which means Cloud-Sea in English) may be using a signal occultation technique to measure cloud cover. Given the dearth of information on the spacecraft analysts also speculate that the spacecraft has other applications, military in nature.

Comment by David Todd: China is famous/infamous for never admitting that any of its launched spacecraft have military use. Usually, the often less than believable, official announcements on Xinhua (China’s official news agency) emphasise the peaceful uses of such spacecraft noting that they are usually being used for “monitoring crops”, or “providing disaster relief” or in this case, “observation of atmospheric, marine and space environment, disaster prevention and mitigation, and scientific experiments”.

The Yunhai-1 spacecraft may well be civilian in nature. But then again it might not.

About Seradata

Seradata produce the renowned Seradata database. Trusted by over 100 of the world’s leading Space organisations, Seradata is a fully queryable database used for market analysis, failure/risk assessment, spectrum analysis and space situational awareness (SSA).

For more information go to https://www.seradata.com/product/

Related Articles

Categories

Archives

Tags

nasaspacexecoreviewsissesaArianespacevideochina25virgin galacticFalcon 9v1.2FT Block 5falcon 9ULARoscosmosevaDGAspacewalkaviation weekaressoyuzIGTInternational Space StationBeidouawardsspaceStarlinkBlue OriginSatellite broadcastingRocket LabrussiamoonISROAirbus DSCargo Return VehicleboeingmarsblogresearchOneWebspaceshiptwoorionjaxaimpacthyperboladelaymarsEutelsatdemocratrocketlunarhypertextobamagoogle lunar prizelaunchVegabarack obamaconstellationSEStourismnorthfiguresthales alenia spacespaceflightnode 2fundedRaymond LygoIntelsat2009Lockheed MartinExpress MD-2Elon MuskAtlas Vromess2dassault aviationaviationLucy2008wk2sstlukradiomissilesuborbitaldocking portexplorationAriane 5 ECAVirgin OrbittestinternetChina Manned Space EngineeringAriane 5Northrop GrummanSLSLong March 2D/2sts-1222010space tourismgalileoflightnewspapermissile defensecotsspaceportExpress AMU 1Long March 4CElectronbuildspace stationaltairinternational astronautical congresssoyuz 2-1ashuttleProton MEuropean Space AgencyLauncherOneCosmosIntelsat 23scaled compositesrulesspace shuttlenew yorkhanleybudgetatvVietnamshenzhouAriane 6congressMojaveboldenLong March 2COrbital ATKnew shepardInmarsatGuiana Space Centeriaccneslunar landerksclawsSpace Systems/LoralUK Space AgencyLong March 4BILSUS Air ForceprotonTalulah RileyApollodarpaFalcon 9v1.2 Block 5Kuaizhou 1AVega CSkylonAstriumeupicturebaseusaastronautdragonlanderfiveeventTelesatNorth KoreaSSLElectron KSAprilSNC50thinterviewfalconSea LaunchLong MarchWednesdaycustomerlinkatlantissuccessor