China's Long March 4D rocket sets national record for launching satellites in a single mission

China's Long March 4D rocket was able to set a national record for launching spacecraft in a single mission. The satellites are designed to capture high-resolution images of the Earth.

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Long March 4D launched 41 Gaofen 06A satellites simultaneously in a single mission. These are new spacecraft that will enable China to obtain high-resolution images of our planet's surface.

The satellites are all part of the Jilin-1 constellation, which began forming in 2015. It now consists of 108 spacecraft, each capable of taking images of the Earth's surface at a resolution of 0.5-0.75 metres from an altitude of 500 km. Over the next six months, China will launch another 30 satellites into orbit.

The 138 spacecraft will be enough to take repeated pictures of any spot on the Earth at 10-minute intervals. China, however, does not intend to stop there. By 2025, the Jilin-1 constellation will consist of more than 300 satellites. That will be enough to provide daily updates of the entire surface of the planet.

Chinese experts spent less than a year developing Gaofen 06A. Modern versions of the satellites weigh around 22kg and cost around $560,000. The UN made its first decisions after the earthquakes in Syria and Turkey based on data from Gaofen 06A satellites.

Source: scmp