Cosmic PenguinThis will be the 1st lunar far side samples ever collected (not counting meteorites of course)
Looks like there's another Chinese launch going into the list on August 8 ~22:55 UTC.
Drop zone locations suggests a LM-2C going out of Taiyuan towards SSO, the timing suggests a radar satellite on top - but which one? Perhaps it's the 2nd 5 m resolution S-band radar satellite planned by the Chinese, a.k.a. “HJ-2-06”?
And so it's indeed FY-3F launching (right before the F9/Galaxy 37 launch window).
See below tweet for some live coverage of the launch.
Cosmic Penguin (@[email protected])
Attached: 1 image And the next Chinese launch is out, indeed on August 3 ~03:55 UTC from Jiuquan pointing towards PenguinLand. The drop zone location/timing almost certainly nails it as for the next Chinese "morning polar orbit" weather satellite FY-3F on LM-4C, which will replaced the just-shy-of-decade-old FY-3C. https://twitter.com/CNSpaceflight/status/1678436774094438406
If we got lucky (as with the FY-3G launch in April) we might even get some rare live coverage!
https://twitter.com/CNSpaceflight/status/1686771254978822144
And it's starting now:
FY-3F is a replacement for FY-3C which has been in service since Sep. 2013, a very long time for weather satellites. The same weather sat serving the "morning orbit" SSO in the West is EUMETSAT's MetOp-C.
This is also the 100th launch of the LM-4 since 1988!
This is also the 100th launch of the LM-4 since 1988!
Launch timeline - note the 2 burns for its 3rd stage, the one main difference that differs LM-4B from that of LM-4C.
It's quite a surprise that a modern orbital launch vehicle can get to 100 flights without any notable launches, but such is the life for LM-4 (2 x LM-4A, 48 x LM-4B, this is the 50th LM-4C).
2nd stage separation, with the very rarely seen LM-4 3rd stage now powering its flight:
TECO-1 after a 5 and a half minute burn, the 3rd stage will coast towards the apogee for about 10 minutes before making its 2nd burn at T+20:18 (roughly 35 seconds burn) - the restart capability being LM-4C's difference from that of the 4B for higher polar orbits >700 km.
Currently they are talking about FY-3F's instruments (https://space.oscar.wmo.int/satellites/view/fy_3f) - the new instrument on board is the Ozone Monitoring Suite which apparently has heritage to the EU Copernicus Sentinel series.
Photos - this marks both the 50th LM-4C (48 successes) and 100th LM-4 series (97 successes) launches.
The Chinese CMA do aim for really broad weather satellites coverage - while NOAA & EUMETSAT needs to cooperate to have the main SSO slots ("Morning" & "Afternoon") covered, the Chinese have satellites in both (3C>3F, 3D), plus in a "Dawn/Dusk" SSO (3E) AND a dedicated LEO precipitation sat (3G).
This still seems like quite a complicated rocket for Delta II class capabilities these days TBH:
FY-3F, full list of the Chinese Feng Yun meteorology satellites and Big Red Screen (TM):
Short launch video:
Another one:
The LM-2C/D/4B/C launch mount: https://twitter.com/CNSpaceflight/status/1687133770296795136
I've placed the full launch webcast on YouTube for reference:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J3aEmOWeB2k
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J3aEmOWeB2k
Chinese Long March 4C rocket launches Fengyun-3F polar orbit weather satellite (Official Webcast)
They are really going for it, it seems!
All SRM rocket that lifts like Antares! From the sea! Before end of this year!
https://twitter.com/CNSpaceflight/status/1687321227202093056
Good overview of the basic architecture of the planned Chinese crew landing on the Moon (hint: it does look quite more like Apollo than Artemis!).
China's Plan for a CREWED Lunar Landing in 2029
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Not surprising TBH, maybe they will have more luck sending it to the ISS…
LMAO imagine any LSP in this world building 300 rocket engines for use every year…
(SpaceX reuses their engines so I’m sure they don’t need 300 Merlins/year these days, nor 300 Raptors in the future)
https://twitter.com/CNSpaceflight/status/1688548104176635904
There's lack of solid info, but it does seem that besides one that should launch in a day, there are another 2 from China w/t the next 4 days. One of them, August 10 03:00 - 08:00 UTC @ Jiuquan, can be tentatively ID-ed w/ the 7th Galactic Energy Ceres-1:
https://twitter.com/CNSpaceflight/status/1675015956916236289
This is based on the drop zones' relative locations & official reports of flight 7 being in this month, <20 days since last! It seems to be a share-ride with these 2 satellites giving a perfect match for launch dates: https://twitter.com/CNSpaceflight/status/1687536126305914880
There might also be another Jilin-1 EO satellite on board: https://twitter.com/CNSpaceflight/status/1686236308505849857
The other one is surprising though, on August 11, 17:00 - 21:00 UTC @ Xichang. The zone is run-of-the-mill for LM-3B launches towards GTO, but no good candidates for the thing on top exists, and when someone floated a "launch day mail cover" for this one a huge surprise is found!
The cover says it's LM-3B s/n Y92 launching a certain "Ludi Tance-4A". The "LTDC" part stands for "Land Probing" and was used as a different name for L-Band radar satellites L-SAR-01A & B launched Jan. & Feb. 2022 as "LTDC-1A/B". Which points to an interesting possibility for "LTDC-4A"...
I suddenly remembered CASC has officially reported a "20 m resolution high-orbit radar satellite" going to be launched this year (GEO?). It hasn't yet, but it sharing a name w/ other SAR EO satellites & being "land probing" too seems to put this as a real possibility.