The year 2017 saw a total of 90 known orbital launch attempts from seven nations and space ports in eight different countries. 2017 had the second most orbital launch attempts of any year in the current century, short of 92 launches in 2014 and showing a slight increase from 2016 that had 85 known launch attempts.
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Two days after placing an Earth-imaging satellite into orbit, China was in action again on Monday for the country’s fourth launch of the month and the final expected Chinese mission in 2017, involving a Long March 2C rocket lifting the third group of Yaogan-30 electromagnetic-sensing satellites into orbit.
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China sent the second satellite of the LKW constellation into orbit on Saturday via a Long March 2D rocket, coming less than three weeks after the first LKW satellite reached orbit in what observers suspected was the first launch in a new series of reconnaissance spacecraft flying under the cover of land surveying missions.
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China was in action again on Sunday, launching a Long March 3B rocket carrying the Chinese-built AlcomSat-1 communications satellite for operation by the Algerian Space Agency as a dual-purpose spacecraft for civilian and military communications.
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China conducted its 15th orbital launch of the year on Sunday, involving a Long March 2D rocket lifting the LKW-1 imaging satellite into orbit.
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China was in action for the second time this week on Friday with the launch of a trio of Yaogan-30 satellites atop a Long March 2C rocket to join a growing constellation of what are believed to be electronic intelligence-gathering satellites residing in non-synchronous Low Earth Orbits 600 Kilometers in altitude.
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China’s Long March 6 rocket carried out its second flight on Tuesday to lift a trio of Jilin-1 high-resolution video satellites into orbit to join a growing constellation of commercial Earth observation satellites.
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China launched a Long March 4C rocket from the Taiyuan Satellite Launch Center at 18:40 UTC on Tuesday, carrying into orbit the Fengyun-3D weather satellite, joining China’s polar-orbiting constellation of meteorological satellites
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A Chinese Long March 3B rocket lifted off from the country’s Xichang Satellite Launch Center around 11:44 UTC on Sunday, embarking on a multi-hour climb into an orbit over 21,000 Kilometers in altitude to dispatch a pair of Beidou-3 navigation satellites to join China’s global navigation satellite system currently undergoing deployment.
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A Chinese Long March 2D rocket lifted off from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center at 4:13 UTC on Monday, carrying into orbit the Venezuelan Remote Sensing Satellite 2, “Antonio José de Sucre.”
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China conducted a secretive launch from the Xichang Satellite Launch Center on Friday, involving a Long March 2C rocket deploying a trio of satellites into orbit under the designation Yaogan-30 Group 01.
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A Long March 3B rocket stage re-entered the atmosphere on August 17, 2017 after over five years in orbit, making a slow decay from a highly elliptical Medium Earth Transfer Orbit.
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A Long March 3B rocket stage re-entered the atmosphere on July 21, 2017 after close to a year in orbit, making a slow decay from a highly elliptical Geostationary Transfer Orbit. The Long March 3B rocket launched the Tiantong 1-1 mobile communications satellite operating in the S- and UHF communications bands, likely with military use.
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A Long March 3A rocket stage re-entered the atmosphere on July 18, 2017 after over one decade in orbit, making a very slow decay from a Medium Earth Transfer Orbit.
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China’s heaviest rocket lifted off from a picturesque tropical launch site on Hainan Island at sunset on Sunday, rising into sunlight shortly after blastoff before disappearing in the night on its second orbital mission.
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China’s Long March 5 – ranking among the most powerful rockets in the world – is standing ready atop its launch pad on Hainan Island for liftoff this weekend with one of the heaviest, if not the heaviest Geostationary Satellite
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The launch of China’s Zhongxing-9A communications satellite atop a Long March 3B rocket did not reach its planned orbital destination on Sunday, Chinese state media confirmed after several hours of silence following the midnight hour liftoff from the Xichang launch base.
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