At 2050 on 29 April, a Chinese Long March 3B launched two Beidou spacecrat from Xichang using a new large fairing and a dual satellite adapter. This is the first dual launch of two major payloads for the launch vehicle. The satellites, Beidou 2C-M3 and Beidou 2C-M4 are part of the Chinese equivalent of the US GPS navigation satellite system albeit that users have to actively interrogate the system rather than receive signals passively as with GPS.
Long March 3B rocket makes dual launch of two Beidou craft
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