On March 5, Beijing time, the Long March 2C carrier rocket, developed by the First Institute of China Aerospace Science and Technology Group (CAST), ignited and lifted off from the Xichang Satellite Launch Center, successfully sending China’s first batch of six low-orbit broadband communication satellites, Galaxy Space Batch 02, into predetermined orbit, and the mission was a complete success.
The mission also carried the launch of a commercial remote sensing satellite, according to Chinese media reports on March 6.
Li Jun, the director general designer of the Long March 2C launch vehicle type of the China Aerospace Science and Technology Group (CAST), introduced that in this mission, the test team took the initiative to coordinate and rapidly iterate, determine the system interface in a short time, realize the satellite requirements by integrating mature sub-technologies and products as much as possible, and reduce the amount of system design and test verification, thus greatly shortening the mission response cycle – the launch service contract was officially signed in May 2021 and the launch was completed in March 2022, setting a new shortest cycle for mission response.
The news from Weibo aviation opinion leader “Aviation Story” said that this is not only the first batch of six low-orbit broadband communication satellites developed in China is successfully launched, and the performance indicators of these satellites also exceed Elon Musk’s Starlink satellite.
This launch is the first mission of the Long March 2C launch vehicle in 2022, and is also the first center-bearing cylinder side-mounted multi-star group launch of the Long March 2C launch vehicle in two-stage configuration, in addition to the combined application of several new technologies and new states.
Xing Jianwei, deputy chief designer of the Long March-2C launch vehicle type overall of the China Aerospace Science and Technology Group (CAST), introduced that in the subsequent launch missions this year, the Long March-2C launch vehicle also plans to further carry out innovative research on parachute-based fairing drop zone control system.
China Galaxy Aerospace’s 02 batches of satellites are low-orbit broadband communication satellites with international advanced level independently developed and mass-manufactured by Galaxy Aerospace. The designed communication capacity of a single satellite exceeds 40 gigabits per second, and the average satellite weight is about 190 kilograms.
It is reported that these six satellites will form my country’s first low-orbit broadband communication test constellation together with the first satellite of Galaxy Aerospace, and build a satellite-to-ground 5G test network – “Little Spider Web”, with a single time of about 30 minutes. The uninterrupted and low-latency broadband communication service capability of the system can be used for technical verification of my country’s low-orbit satellite Internet and the integrated space-earth network.
The successful launch of this mission also verified that China has the necessary satellite Internet constellation of low-cost, batch development and network operation capabilities, which is of positive significance for promoting the development of China’s commercial low-orbit satellite communication and remote sensing integration technology.
This launch is also another successful commercial space launch mission after the successful completion of the 22-star commercial “shared launch” of the Long March 8 remote 2 launch vehicle on Feb. 27, six days before. Within a week, the first 2022 launch missions of both Long March 8 and Long March 2C rocket types were commercial space launch projects undertaken by the Great Wall Company, a subsidiary of China Aerospace Science and Technology Group.
The person in charge of the Great Wall Company said that space launch is a key part of the commercial space industry chain, at a time when China’s domestic commercial space booming opportunity, through innovative and advanced launch management mode has greatly contributed to the speedup of China’s commercial space. Driven by the small-satellite market, the “shared launch” of one rocket and multiple satellites has become normalized.