Current Affairs - Science - Discussion

China successfully launched a Long March 3B rocket carrying two Beidou-3MEO satellites: Beidou-30 and Beidou-31 from the LC2 Launch Complex of the Xichang Satellite Launch Center, Sichuan province, China. The Long March 3B rocket flew with a Yuanzheng-1 (YZ-1) upper stage attached. This ignited its YF-50D engine after launch. It will burn out for nearly four hours, and the two BeIDou-3 satellites will be released into MEO. The MEO satellites are the Medium Earth Orbit entity of the third phase of the Chinese Beidou (Compass) satellite navigation system. The BeiDou-3 M5 and M6 satellites are based on dedicated satellite bus. Their weight is nearly one metric ton a piece. Both satellites have two deployable solar arrays.