Long March 2D rocket took off from Taiyuan
China launched a Long March-2D carrier rocket n° Y90 on Thursday, March 30, 2023, to place PIESAT-1 (or Hongtu-1, 宏图一号, Hóngtú Yī Hào) remote sensing satellites into orbit . in orbit. The rocket lifted off from the Taiyuan Satellite Launch Center in Shanxi Province at 10:50 UTC (6:50 pm Beijing time), and its upper stage entered the predetermined orbit.
PIESAT-1, four X-band interferometric synthetic aperture radar (InSAR) satellites, will provide commercial remote sensing data services. They are components of the first group of the constellation of thirty-eight satellites, to be called Nuwa-1. The quartet includes a main satellite of 320 kg and the remaining three, of 270 kg each, are subsatellites, all in formation flight and operating in very long baseline interferometry in a sun-synchronous orbit of 528 km high. The optical equipment has a maximum resolution of 0.5 to 5 meters, with accuracy for monitoring the movement of the Earth's crust of up to 3 to 5 mm/year and is capable of carrying out land surveys for maps at a scale of 1:50,000.
According to official Chinese media, this mission was the 469th flight of the rockets named Long March. The CZ-2D rocket was developed by the Eighth Academy of China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation
The Long March 2D (referred to as CZ-2D or Chang Zheng 2D) is a type of space rocket developed by China in February 1990. It was first launched on August 9, 1992 and sent a returnable scientific test satellite. The rocket is based on the Long March 4A without the third stage, to become a two-stage launcher. The layout of the Long March 2D is basically the same as the first and second stages of the CZ-4 series. In 2000, the Long March 2 D-02 rocket batch project was inaugurated and its reliability index was increased from 0.95 to 0.97. The CZ-2D has a total length (without fairing): 33.667 meters; (41.05 meters with the hood installed); maximum diameter: 3.35 meters; take-off mass: 236,966 tons; and takeoff thrust of 2,961.6 kN (301,999.1 kgf). Thrust-to-weight ratio: 1.28; payload capacity: about 3,100 kg in 175 x 355 km, elliptical orbit with 63 degree inclination; Accuracy: orbital inclination deviation of 0.2 degrees, perigee altitude deviation of 5 km, perigee argument deviation of 5 degrees, and ascending node longitude deviation of 0.1 degrees.
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