spacetoday.net: China launches remote sensing satellite

Posted: Thu, Apr 23, 2009, 7:43 AM ET (1143 GMT)
Long March 2C launch of Yaogan 6 (Xinhua)

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.