A Long March-2D rocket carrying the Gaofen-5 01A satellite blasts off from the Taiyuan Satellite Launch Center in north China's Shanxi Province, Dec 9, 2022. Photo:Xinhua

China's Long March-4B carrier rocket delivered another successful orbital launch mission on Tuesday, sending a new remote sensing satellite codenamed Gaofen-11 04 into its preset orbit from Taiyuan Satellite Launch Center in North China's Shanxi Province.

Developed by the China Academy of Spacecraft Technology (CAST,) the Gaofen-11 04 satellite will join forces with the 01, 02 and 03 satellites which are optical remote sensing satellites, to form a network, as part of the country's high-resolution Earth observation project.

The Global Times learned from CAST that the new satellite will greatly enhance the network's Earth observation capabilities, and it will be used in fields such as land survey, urban planning, road network design, agriculture, and disaster relief. The data will also be used for the Belt and Road Initiative.

Since the Gaofen project began in 2010, China has gained an increasingly clearer view of the planet.

CAST said that Tuesday's mission marked that all orbital launches in 2022 for the 41 satellites and spaceships developed by the academy were successful. CAST spacecraft launched include the Tianzhou-4 and -5 cargo spacecraft and the Shenzhou-14, -15 manned spacecraft which have been instrumental in building the Chinese Space Station.

The Tuesday mission was also the 17th space launch mission and the final one scheduled this year at the Taiyuan Satellite Launch Center. The Taiyuan center achieved success in all 17 missions, which included the China's first space launch in 2022 on January 17 of a Long March 2D carrier rocket. 

The Shanghai Academy of Spacecraft Technology, the developer of the Long March-4 rocket series, told the Global Times via a statement on Tuesday that the rocket module conducted and succeeded in all 11 space launch missions in 2022 and the Tuesday launch was the final one for the type this year.

For two consecutive years, the Long March-4 rocket series have carried out more than 10 launches each year, the rocket developer said.