China Successfully Launches New Group of Remote-Sensing Satellites for Commercial and Potential Defense Use

Jiuquan: China has successfully launched a new set of remote-sensing satellites from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center, located in northwest China. The launch took place on Saturday at 11:39 a.m. (Beijing Time), sending four PIESAT-2 satellites into their designated orbits aboard a Long March-2C carrier rocket.

The primary role of these PIESAT-2 satellites is to deliver commercial remote-sensing data services. This mission marks the 544th flight of the Long March carrier rocket series, showcasing the continued expansion of China’s satellite technology capabilities.

In addition to the PIESAT-2 launch, China deployed the Gaofen-12 (05) satellite, which will support applications such as land surveys, urban planning, road network design, crop yield assessments, and disaster relief. Although officially presented as a satellite for civilian and commercial uses, the limited publicly available information has led to speculation that it may also serve military functions. It could be a civilian counterpart to the Yaogan satellite series, which is known for military applications.

China has previously withheld certain details about Gaofen satellites numbered 8 and above, leading experts to believe that these satellites may be intended for national defense purposes.

In March 2023, China launched PIESAT-1, also known as Hongtu-1, which was the first wheel-like satellite formation designed for high-precision terrain mapping. This innovative formation successfully used multi-baseline interferometric synthetic aperture radar (InSAR) technology, marking China’s initial in-orbit application of such a mapping system.

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