Chinese company CAS Space has successfully launched the Kinetica-1 launch vehicle, which took two Chinese and one Pakistani Earth remote sensing satellites into orbit, TASS reported citing China Central Television.
The launch took place at 11:33 a.m. local time (06:33 a.m. Moscow time) from the Dongfeng commercial project site at Jiuquan Cosmodrome in northern China.
Kinetica-1 is a four-stage solid-fuel rocket with a 3.35-meter fairing diameter. It is 31 meters long and can carry up to two tons of payload to low Earth orbit (up to 1.5 tons to sun-synchronous orbit). This is its ninth mission.
Beijing is actively developing the national space program, developing meteorological, telecommunication and navigation satellites, as well as technologies designed to explore the Moon. With the support of the state, Chinese specialists are implementing asteroid and Mars exploration projects. The PRC space station operates in orbit, which is also intended for international cooperation. In 2024, China carried out 68 launches.
