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Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Friday, November 21, 2003

Communications satellite placed in fixed orbit

The communications satellite launched by China on Nov. 15 was placed in geostationary orbit earlier on Thursday, according to sources from the Xi'an Satellite Monitor and Control Center.


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The communications satellite launched by China on Nov. 15 was placed in geostationary orbit earlier on Thursday, according to sources from the Xi'an Satellite Monitor and Control Center.

The Chinese-made satellite, known as Zhongxing-20, was positioned at 103 degrees east longitude over the equator at 2:28 p.m. Thursday (Beijing Time) after entering the transfer orbit, the sources said.

Zhongxing-20, weighing 2.3 tons, is a geostationary communications satellite designed by the China Academy of Space Technology under the China Aerospace Science and Technology Corp.

The center used a new type of monitoring and control network and long-distance, transparent remote control mode to track and control it before it was positioned, said the sources.

Space experts with the center said the successful positioning of the satellite indicates the country's space tracking and control technology is increasingly mature.

To date, only a few countries have the know-how to precisely control such communications satellite, said the expert.

The satellite was launched into a preset orbit on Nov. 15, atopa Long March 3 A carrier rocket from the Xichang Satellite Launch Center in Sichuan Province, southwest China.

Twenty-five minutes later, the satellite entered an elliptic orbit with a perigee of 212 kilometers and an apogee of 41,981 kilometers.

With a lift-off mass of 243 tons and a lift-off propulsion of 300 tons, the carrier rocket was developed by the China Academy ofLaunch Vehicle Technology and could propel up to 2.6 tons into geostationary orbit.

The launch was the 73rd by the country's Long March carrier rockets since 1970, and the 32nd consecutive successful launch since October 1996.

The Nov. 15 launch was the fourth in the period from Oct. 15 toNov. 15. The other three were China's first manned space flight onOct. 15-16, the launch of an earth resources satellite developed in cooperation with Brazil and a smaller satellite on Oct. 21, andthe launch of a Chinese-made science satellite on Nov. 3.


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