THE country sent six satellites into space from the Taiyuan Satellite Launch Center in northern Shanxi Province at

4:52 p.m. Saturday.

They were launched by a Kuaizhou-1A (KZ-1A) rocket and have entered the planned orbit successfully.

It was the second launch from the Taiyuan launch center in less than six hours after another KZ-1A rocket sent the Jilin-1 Gaofen 02B satellite into space at

10:55 a.m., setting a new record for China’s aerospace industry.

It also marked a breakthrough for the Taiyuan Satellite Launch Center in its rapid launch and emergency launch capabilities.

The satellites HEAD-2A and HEAD-2B were the first batch of satellites for the Skywalker Constellation, which was developed by Beijing-based HEAD Aerospace Technology Co. Ltd. They will provide global users with services such as environmental monitoring, material supervision, emergency communication enhancement and information collection on global ships and aircraft.

Developed by Spacety Co., Ltd. based in Changsha, Hunan Province, the Spacety-16 and Spacety-17 satellites are medium-resolution micro-nano remote sensing satellites that are mainly used for disaster prevention, maritime applications, agricultural remote sensing and polar environment monitoring.

Tianqi-4A and Tianqi-4B satellites developed by a Beijing-based high-tech company are low-orbit satellites. They will provide services like global Internet of Things data transmission, emergency communications and material tracking.

KZ-1A is a low-cost solid-fuel carrier rocket with high reliability and a short preparation period. The rocket, developed by a company under the China Aerospace Science and Industry Corp., is mainly used to launch low-orbit microsatellites.

(Xinhua)