Posted: Sat, Mar 23, 2024, 11:15 AM ET (1515 GMT)
China launched a lunar data relay satellite Tuesday night. A Long March 8 rocket lifted off at 8:31 pm EDT (0031 GMT Wednesday) from the Wenchang Satellite Launch Center and place the Queqiao-2 satellite on a trajectory to the moon. Queqiao-2 will go into an elliptical inclined orbit around the moon so it can relay communications from other lunar missions, such as the Chang'e-6 farside lunar sample return mission expected to launch in May. Chinese officials said that Queqiao-2 could be used by lunar missions from other countries as well. The launch also carried a pair of small experimental satellites named Tiandu-1 and Tiandu-2 for navigation and communications technology verification.

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