Washington. December 22. INTERFAX-The Chinese medium-class rocket "Changzheng-8" ("Great campaign-8", CZ-8) on Tuesday launched into orbit with a secret satellite XJY-7, as well as a group of space micro-devices, live broadcast was conducted on the Chinese website DouYu.
This is the first flight of the latest Chinese rocket.
The launch was carried out at 07: 37 Moscow time from the Wenchang cosmodrome on Hainan island.
Last week, the national space administration of the people's Republic of China (CNSA) reported that the launch vehicle is installed on the launch pad.
The rocket will launch a secret xjy-7 satellite into a sun-synchronous orbit to test technologies developed by the Chinese Academy of space technology (CAST). On Board are also the ET-SMART-RSS microsatellite (ETHSAT-6U) or Zhixing-1A, created for Ethiopia, the Haisa-1 remote sensing device And the next Tianqi communication satellite (Apocalypse 12).
The latest two-stage Chinese launch vehicle "Changzheng-8" is capable of putting up to 2.8 tons of payload into a geosynchronous transition orbit, up to 5 tons into a sun-synchronous orbit with a height of 700 km, and 7.6 tons into a low earth orbit.
In the future, the first stage of the new rocket with side boosters in the Changzheng-8R variant is planned to be adapted for reusable use.
It will have to carry out a controlled vertical landing on a sea platform after the launch of the rocket.