China added Yunhai series remote sensing satellites late Saturday and launched them from the Gobi Desert. The Long March 2D rocket was launched from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center at 20:54 EST, October 14 (0054 UTC, October 15). China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation (CASC) confirmed the successful launch within an hour and also announced that the mission payload will be Yunhai-1 (04).

Shanghai Academy of Space Technology CASC provided the launch vehicle for the mission and developed the Yunhai-1 (04) satellite. Chinese state media describes the satellite as providing “atmospheric, marine and space detection services, disaster prevention and mitigation, and scientific experiments.” This is a commonly used description of the Yunhai spacecraft.

Some Western analysts consider the Yunhai series to be military weather satellites.

China launched its first Yunhai satellite in November 2016. Yunhai-1 series satellites operate in roughly circular sun-synchronous orbit (SSO) at an altitude of 780 kilometers. The Hypercolic Hiking 2D has a launch capacity of 1,300 kilograms for a 700-kilometer SSO. The Yunhai-2 series orbits at a similar altitude with a 50-degree inclination.

Yunhai-1 (02), launched in 2019, likely collided with a small piece of debris from a Russian satellite launched in March 2021. US space forces detected a total of 37 fragments in orbit, 23 of which have returned to the atmosphere to date.

Yunhai-1 (04) was China’s 47th orbital launch of 2023. At the beginning of the year, CASC announced that it planned to conduct more than 60 launches and has completed 33 launches so far. Commercial companies attended the general launch.

China suffered a setback in 2023 with the loss of the Jilin-1 remote sensing satellite aboard Galactic Energy’s Ceres-1 commercial rocket.

China is now preparing to launch the Shenzhou-17 manned mission. A new three-person crew will depart for the Tiangong space station later this month. The Shenzhou-16 trio, currently aboard the space station, will hand over Tiangong to the Shenzhou-17 crew to begin their six-month stay in orbit.

The country is also working to launch Einstein Probe, a large-field X-ray space observatory designed to detect explosions from catastrophic cosmic events. The spacecraft underwent thermovacuum and other tests in July and August. China plans to launch the vehicle in December using a Long March 2C rocket from the Xichang Satellite Launch Center.