A rocket with twin navigation satellites blasted off early Saturday from a spaceport in southwestern China, its space authority said.
BEIJING (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 25th August, 2018) A rocket with twin navigation satellites blasted off early Saturday from a spaceport in southwestern China, its space authority said.
The Long March-3B rocket carrying a set of Beidou-3 satellites took off at 7:52 a.m. local time (23:52GMT Friday) from the Xichang satellite launch center in the Sichuan Province.
The satellites will become the 35th and 36th elements of the nations space-based navigation system, the China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation (CASC) said.
China has been building its own satellite navigation system to rival GPS in the United States, Glonass in Russia, and Galileo in the European Union. It consists of two separate constellations. It plans to launch up to 30 Beidou-3 satellites by the end of 2020.
