Posted: Thu, Apr 23, 2009, 7:43 AM ET (1143 GMT)
China launched the latest in a new series of remote sensing satellites on Wednesday. A Long March 2C rocket lifted off from the Taiyuan Satellite Launch Center at 10:55 pm EDT Tuesday (0255 GMT, 10:55 am Beijing time Wednesday) and placed the Yaogan 6 satellite into Sun-synchronous orbit. The satellite is the latest in a series of remote sensing satellites first launched in 2006. According to Chinese media reports the Yaogan satellites are used a variety of land resources and disaster monitoring applications, and also carry space science experiments. Some speculate that the spacecraft could also be used for military reconnaissance applications as well.

Related Links:

•  Xinhua article
•  NASASpaceFlight.com article
•  Spaceflight Now article