China Launches Two More BeiDou Satellites

July 27, 2015  - By

BeiDou Launch July 26

News courtesy of CANSPACE Listserv.

Two BeiDou navigation satellites were launched into medium Earth orbit on Saturday, July 25, at 12:29:04.411 UTC, according to a NASASpaceFlight.com Forum blog. The satellites are drifting to their designated orbits. U.S. Joint Space Operations Center / NORAD is tracking the satellites.

BeiDou-satellitesThe satellites are designated BDS M1-S and M2-S — the “S” in the satellite names might stand for “Test” (in Chinese: 试验 = Shiyan).

The latest two-line orbital elements:

TBA – TO BE ASSIGNED
1 40748U 15037A   15208.09343909 -.00000034  00000-0  00000+0 0  9999
2 40748 054.9754 077.2415 0118470 176.9315 037.1295 01.82959902    33

TBA – TO BE ASSIGNED
1 40749U 15037B   15208.10175551 -.00000033  00000-0  00000+0 0  9997
2 40749 055.0117 077.2340 0061520 179.3844 043.4658 01.84512260    30

Additional Photos

This article is tagged with , , and posted in Featured Stories, GNSS, Latest News