China to launch 21 rockets, 30 satellites in 2012

[xizhimen]

China to launch 21 rockets, 30 satellites in 2012

Last Updated: Wednesday, January 18, 2012

Beijing: China plans to launch 21 rockets with 30 satellites in 2012, the China Aerospace and Technology Corporation (CASC) said Wednesday.

The country's ambitious space programme will see a steady increase in the number of space launches in the near future. Last year, China launched 20 rockets with 25 satellites to become the world's second country after Russia in terms of the amount of space launches.

As part of the 2012 schedule, China will launch six more geostationary satellites of the Beidou-2 (Compass) system to expand its own global positioning network to 16 satellites as an alternative to US GPS and Russian Glonass.

Another key event on the Chinese space industry calendar is the launch of Shenzhou-9 and Shenzhou-10 spacecraft to rendezvous and dock with the currently orbiting Tiangong-1 vessel as part of an ambitious project to start building a 60-tonne space station by about 2020.

 

[Nakki Nair]

Why doesnt china focus on carrying multiple satellites per launch? I can see that Chinese payload is usually just a couple of satellites. ISRO usually launches 6-7 satellites in a single launch. A couple of them are heavy and the rest of them are light. Why doesnt China do this? Is it because China only makes heavy satellites?

 

[Roybot]

^^Those are lighter satellites.

You can launch one 3000 Kg satelittes or five 600 Kg ones.

 

[Nakki Nair]

but India doesnt make much heavy launches.Our heaviest PSLV payload was 1560kg cartosat 1. but we launched the 42 kg hamsat with it as well. But the chinese seem to be going mostly with 1 satellite per launch. Same with the paksat launch. I dont think paksat payload would weigh more than a 1000 kilos. http://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=15441.0;wap2
Any idea why?

 

[sss112]

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Satellites are designed to meet the specific needs of a country or region.
The weight depends on the Functions its carries out, technology incorporated into it, life of the satellite, cost of making+launching+maintaining it and how one intends to recover those costs in the long run.

We make small, medium and large satellites as per our needs but can launch the lighter and medium ones ourselves.
The heavier ones [GSAT for example] are launched using Arianespace.

With just two launch pads [i might have missed the exact word here], we have limitations in the number of launches per year.
China has multiple launch sites. So have the capability to carry out a lot more launches every year.

What I just wrote down was just logical deduction and might not be exactly correct.

 

[skyknight]

Why doesnt china focus on carrying multiple satellites per launch? I can see that Chinese payload is usually just a couple of satellites. ISRO usually launches 6-7 satellites in a single launch. A couple of them are heavy and the rest of them are light. Why doesnt China do this? Is it because China only makes heavy satellites?

Learn more on satellites.

 

[applesauce]

first thing is china doesnt launch many tiny 100 kg sats like india does

second current launch capabilities of china does not allow for many heavy sats to by launched on a single rocket, this should changed once the LM-5 comes online along with the new spaceport.

third, you say india launches a few heavy with bunch of light satellites, well this is your ten satellites at once,

690 kg
83 kg
8 kg
6.5 kg
3.5 kg
3 kg
2.2 kg
1 kg
1 kg
0.75 kg

theres not one single heavy satellites there.

total weight is less than the Paksat-1r which is over 1000kg

 

[Yaduveer]

china is no doubt a rising star in the sky but India luckly not too far behind china in the space field as in every other field.

 

[Sasquatch]

China to launch 21 rockets, 30 satellites in 2012

Last Updated: Wednesday, January 18, 2012

Few more articles on this

 

[xizhimen]

Few more articles on this

more will come