China successfully launched the pair of navigation satellites into medium Earth orbits (MEO) on 19 September.
The Long March 3B rocket plus Yuanzheng-1 upper stage lifted off from the Xichang Satellite Launch Centre at 2207 local time (1407 UTC). Four hours later, the China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation (CASC) declared the launch of BeiDou-3s M13 and M14 successful.
The complete 35-satellite Beidou system will contain 27 satellites in medium earth orbit (MEO) at around 22,000 km, 5 in geostationary orbit and 3 in 35,786 km inclined geosynchronous orbits, claiming global GNSS coverage with a positioning accuracy of 2.5 m by 2020.
Email to a Friend