China launches Long March 11 carrier rocket to send six satellites into space

China launched a Long March 11 carrier rocket on Friday to send six satellites into space, according to the China Academy of Launch Vehicle Technology.

Long March 11 carrier rocket has been launched to send six satellites into space on January 19, 2018. [Photo: spacemeldingcloud.com]

The mission marked the first time that a Chinese solid-propellant rocket has been used to service a foreign client, the academy, which developed and built the rocket, said in a news release.

The Long March 11 blasted off at Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in northwestern China at 12: 12 pm and later put six small satellites — two Earth-observation satellites made by a State-owned firm, three experimental satellites from Chinese private companies as well as an unidentified one from a Canadian company — into orbit.

This is the third mission of Long March 11 and the 264th of the Long March family, according to the academy.

Long March 11 is 20.8 meters long, has a diameter of 2 m and a liftoff weight of 58 metric tons. It is capable of sending payloads of 700 kilograms to a low-Earth orbit or 400 kg to a Sun-synchronous orbit 700 kilometers above the ground, statistics from the academy show.

Its first flight was in September 2015 at the Jiuquan center when it lifted four satellites to a Sun-synchronous orbit. The second flight took place in November 2016 at the same center, sending an X-ray pulsar navigation satellite and four small experimental satellites into orbit.