Posted: Tue, Oct 19, 2004, 9:04 PM ET (0104 GMT)
China launched what it called its first "professional" weather satellite early Tuesday. A Long March 3A rocket lifted off from the Xichang Satellite Launch Center at 9:20 pm EDT Monday (0120 GMT, 9:20 am Beijing time Tuesday) and placed into geosynchronous transfer orbit the Fengyun-2C (FY-2C) satellite. The satellite, to be located in geosynchronous orbit at 105 degrees east, will provide coverage of much of East Asia and the western Pacific. Chinese officials called this the first professional weather satellite because of improvements to its scan radiometer that bring it up to the standards of other weather satellite. Two previous, experimental versions of the FY-2 series of weather satellites were launched in 1997 and 2000.

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•  Xinhua article