Hello and welcome to PointOrView. Solar After a lull for two weeks China is back in action.
Today the country blasted off its #37th orbital flight of 2021 from Taiyuan Satellite
Launch Center, in Shanxi Province, in China. For this flight China’s CASC used a Long March
2D launch vehicle to launch a solar observation satellite, known as Chinese Hα Solar Explorer,
or "CHASE", to Sun-Synchronous orbit, along with a small Rideshare payload: APSCO SSS-2A.
The CHASE is designed to test a newly developed satellite platform and conduct solar observations.
The scientific payload of the satellite is an Hα imaging spectrograph (HIS), which can, for the
first time, acquire full-disk spectroscopic solar observations in the Hα waveband.
It will complement the observations by on-orbit solar spacecraft (such as SDO, IRIS, STEREO and
PSP), as well as future solar missions of the Solar Orbiter and the Chinese Advanced
Space-based Solar Observatory (ASO-S). The 550-kilogram CHASE satellite is designed
to maintain a sun-synchronous orbit about 520 kilometers above Earth for at least three years,
and it will be China's first space-based solar telescope.
The satellite will obtain spectral data and images of the sun
as well as verify new satellite technologies. The spacecraft features high directional accuracy
and flying stability. Besides the scientific value,
having more knowledge about the sun enables us to avoid disruption of our communications
and navigation service due to solar activities, and to better protect spacecraft and astronauts.
China has built a network of ground-based solar observatories, but it still lacks a space-based
observation tool. This mission is expected to give Chinese scientists an orbiting platform
to advance their solar research and improve related technologies.
Several Chinese satellites, such as the Fengyun 3E meteorological satellite,
have carried equipment that can collect solar data, but CHASE will be the first satellite
dedicated entirely to solar observation. The satellite was carried by a Long March 2D,
which is a Chinese orbital 2-stage carrier rocket, mainly used for launching low-earth orbit (LEO)
and sun-synchronous orbit (SSO) satellites. The Long March 2D carrier rocket is a two-stage
version of the Long March 4, and is the smallest of all the active Long March rocket series.
The rocket’s first flight was on August 9, 1992, and it has
since had a near perfect launch history. The booster’s first stage is 28 meter tall
and the second stage is 11 meter tall. Both stages are 3.35 meter in diameter
and are powered by YF series of engines. Thant’s it for this video.
Thanks for watching. And I’ll see you in the next one.