China launches four satellites into planned orbits

China on Friday successfully sent four satellites into planned orbits that will be used for ecological environment monitoring, asteroid resource exploration, disaster prevention and mitigation among others.

The satellites were launched by a Long March-2D rocket from the Taiyuan Satellite Launch Centre in northern Shanxi Province at 11:03 am local time, the state-run Xinhua news agency reported.

Among them was the Beijing-3 satellite, a commercial remote sensing satellite developed by China Spacesat Co Ltd. It is used mainly for resource investigation, ecological environment monitoring, urban management, and disaster prevention and mitigation, the CGTN news channel reported.

The other three satellites will be used in researching marine ecological environment observation, asteroid resource exploration, and in-orbit service teaching and training, it said.

On June 3, China successfully launched the first of a new generation meteorological satellites into planned orbit. The FY-4B satellite will be used in the fields of weather analysis and forecasting, and environmental and disaster monitoring.

It will further strengthen China's observation and response capability of small and medium scale disaster events and provide information security services for a range of sectors including meteorological, agricultural, aviation, marine and environmental protection, the China National Space Administration (CNSA) had said in a press release.