China's commercial space sector: Two rocket launches within five days

Galactic Energy, one of China's leading private aerospace companies, has completed another commercial launch mission within just five days, sending another six satellites into orbit.

The CERES-1 Y17 rocket blasted off on Friday from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in northwest China. The six satellites were deployed into the 535-kilometer sun-synchronous orbit.

The newly launched satellites, dubbed Yunyao 43-48, are part of the Yunyao constellation, which is under construction by Tianjin-based Yunyao Aerospace. The company's goal is to establish a global network constellation of 90 commercial meteorological satellites in orbit in order to form a real-time global atmospheric and ionospheric detection system. This system is expected to offer weather forecast information to partner countries with the Belt and Road Initiative proposed by China.

Galactic Energy's flagship rocket model, CERES-1, has successfully carried out 18 rocket launches, delivering 77 satellites into preset orbits. The Beijing-based company also announced that it has maintained the position among commercial launch vehicles in China's private aerospace sector, with the records for the largest number of rocket launches, the most satellites delivered and the highest success rate of rocket launches.