A Chinese Long March 3B/YZ-1 rocket lifted off from the Xichang Satellite Launch Center in the Sichuan Province on Saturday around 12:28 UTC in support of the Beidou-3 navigation satellite program that had seen its first launch earlier in the year. While the first Beidou-3 launch conducted in June used a Long March 3C to loft a single satellite to Geosynchronous Orbit, Saturday's launch most likely involves a pair of Beidou-3 satellites headed to a Medium Earth Orbit over 20,000 Kilometers in altitude.
This is the second flight of China's Yuanzheng-1 Upper Stage capable of conducting direct orbital insertions into a variety of orbits such as Medium Earth and Geosynchronous Orbits similar in capability as the Russian Fregat Upper Stage used on the Soyuz rocket.
After blastoff, the Long March 3B headed to the south-east, burning its three stages before it was to hand off to the YZ-1 upper stage that was in charge of conducting a multi-hour mission including a long coast phase ahead of orbital insertion - creating a mission duration of around four hours. Beidou-3 is the third phase in China's Navigation Satellite System that finds its origin in 1983 when the first concepts were submitted...
