China’s national launch rate remains impressive. Its 62nd launch of the year was of the Hyperbola-1 (aka SQX-1) rocket which took place at 0700 GMT on 17 December. . The launch took place from the Jiuquan launch site in Inner Mongolia. Aboard was the Dear-1 prototype returnable spacecraft which is designed to carry microgravity experiments The orbit achieved was a circa 505 x 490 km at 97.4 degrees inclination sun-synchronous low Earth orbit.
