CERES 1 rocket developed by private Beijing company deploys two satellites

Galactic Energy, a private rocket maker in Beijing, launched the 11th flight mission of its CERES 1 rocket on Tuesday morning to deploy two satellites into orbit.

The rocket blasted off at 7:33 am at the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in northwestern China's Gobi Desert and placed the Tianyan 16 and Starpool 1A satellites into their preset orbits, the company said in a news release.

The Tianyan 16, designed and built by the Beijing-based private company Cultivate Space, is a meteorological satellite equipped with passive microwave detection equipment. It can measure the vertical layers of atmospheric temperature and humidity, and can also survey precipitation, sea surface pressure and the structure of typhoons.

Data obtained by the spacecraft will help with early warnings of typhoons, downpours and other extreme weather events and will also support research on climate change.

Starpool 1A, made by Ellipspace, another private satellite maker in Beijing, is a remote-sensing satellite tasked with obtaining images of designated areas on the ground.

The solid-propellant Ceres 1 is about 20 meters tall and has a diameter of 1.4 meters. With a liftoff weight of 33 metric tons, it is capable of sending a 300 kilogram satellite or several satellites with a combined weight of 300 kg, to a 500 km sun-synchronous orbit, or 350 kg payloads to a low-Earth orbit at an altitude of 200 km.

Galactic Energy has now carried out 10 successful orbital launch missions with CERES 1 rockets, far outperforming its private competitors in China. The flights have placed 35 commercial satellites into space.