The Shijian-21 satellite was launched on October 24. Chinese experts expect to test space debris prevention technology. This was announced by the China Corporation of Aerospace Science and Technology (CASC).
The launch took place at 04:27 (Moscow time) from the Xichan cosmodrome in southwestern China. Long March 3B has successfully delivered a satellite to its intended orbit. Today’s flight is the 393rd for this missile family.
The satellite was developed by the Shanghai Academy of Space Technology. Shijian-21 is to test space debris collection technology. No further details were given about the satellite and its capabilities.
“Three technological enhancements have been made to the launch of the Long March-3B launch vehicle on Sunday, making it even more optimized and reliable,” said Zhang Tao, deputy chief developer of the Long March-3B launch vehicle.
The launch was 36th this year for CASC and 39th for China overall, including launches by the state-owned Expace and the tea firm iSpace. CASC plans to complete over 40 launches by the end of the year and set a national record.
Space debris is broken satellites and debris from explosions and collisions of spacecraft. Astronomers can only track large particles due to their high speed. The main problem is the failure of working satellites due to collisions with space debris.
They started talking about this problem at the dawn of space exploration. But there is still no way to massively remove debris from near-earth orbits. Today, a working technology is the removal of old satellites into neighboring orbits.
