Rui's article!
http://www.nasaspaceflight.com/2014/12/long-march-4c-yaogan-weixing-25/
Just a constructive criticism, but can authors please stop with the obligatory "...The first orbital launch took place on April 24, 1970 when the CZ-1 Chang Zheng-1 ..." at the end of every chinese launch article? Same for any article referencing Chinese manned launches. You don't do it for Russian or American launches. Seriously. It's just unnecessary.
Orbits for all 6 objects (1st 3 are satellites, D is the 3rd stage and E/F are multiple payload support structures):
40338/2014-080A: 1089 x 1097 km x 63.41 deg.
40339/2014-080B: 1091 x 1098 km x 63.41 deg.
40340/2014-080C: 1091 x 1099 km x 63.41 deg.
40341/2014-080D: 906 x 1101 km x 63.47 deg.
40342/2014-080E: 1093 x 1098 km x 63.41 deg.
40343/2014-080F: 1091 x 1097 km x 63.41 deg.
The exact launch time is 19:33:03.880 UTC.
Here are 2 of the launch photos in higher resolution:
BTW why do they do insist to locate JSLC in Gansu province and not in Inner Mongolia?
Likely because the city of Jiuquan is indeed located in the Gansu province, while the Jiuquan Space Center is more than 100 km away from the city, and is actually located in the neighboring Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region. This causes often this kind of confusion.
BTW why do they do insist to locate JSLC in Gansu province and not in Inner Mongolia?
Likely because the city of Jiuquan is indeed located in the Gansu province, while the Jiuquan Space Center is more than 100 km away from the city, and is actually located in the neighboring Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region. This causes often this kind of confusion.
And keep I'm mind that the USSR used the same naming tactics.
According to official reports, this triplet launch was moved up 8 months (!) from the original schedule due to "customer demand", with the plan confirmed only in February this year! This means that the 3 sats only had 35 days of turn-around at the launch site instead of the usual 2 months.
Which brings us some speculations about another Chinese launch coming soon. But that's for another thread....
