HELSINKI — China launched the ChinaSat-9C communications satellite Friday to replace an aging, foreign-built predecessor and boost domestic broadcasting capabilities.
A Long March 3B lifted off at 8:37 a.m. Eastern (1237 UTC) June 20 from Xichang Satellite Launch Center in southwest China.
The China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation (CASC) announced launch success under an hour after liftoff, revealing the previously undisclosed payload to be the ChinaSat-9C (Zhongxing-9C) communications satellite.
U.S. Space Force space domain awareness later cataloged one object in geosynchronous transfer orbit (GTO) and another, likely representing the upper stage, in an unusual 218 by 12,430-km orbit. Future orbital data may provide more insight into the situation.
The mission follows last month’s launch of ChinaSat-3B (Zhongxing-3B) from Wenchang spaceport. While that mission was classified, CASC provided some technical details for the new satellite.
ChinaSat-9C is based on a DFH-4E satellite platform, an enhanced version of China’s widely used DFH-4 satellite bus, offering increased payload capacity, power generation, and flexibility for high-throughput applications. The Broadcast Satellite Service (BSS) satellite has a liftoff mass of 5,500 kilograms and a design life of 15 years, and will provide improved regional coverage for TV and radio, with Ku-band and other frequency band transponders.
Developed by CASC’s China Academy of Space Technology (CAST), it will replace the 17-year-old ChinaSat-9, positioned at 92.2° East in the geostationary belt, approximately 35,786 km above the equator. ChinaSat-9 was launched in June 2008 and manufactured by Thales Alenia Space.
ChinaSat-9B was launched in 2021 to support 4K and 8K high-definition video program transmission. It replaced ChinaSat-9A, which was launched in 2017, but inserted into a lower-than-planned orbit due to a third stage anomaly. It used its own propellant to reach GEO, greatly reducing its lifetime.
China launched another satellite in the series, ChinaSat-10R, in February this year. It has since arrived at 110.5 degrees East in the geostationary belt, replacing ChinaSat-10, launched in 2011.
The country has a range of ChinaSat assets in geostationary orbit for television broadcasting, communications, Internet access and military communications, having launched more than 30 satellites in the series. It is also constructing two low Earth orbit megaconstellations, as well as Tianlian data relay satellites in GEO, and new plans for medium Earth orbit.
China’s 2025 launch cadence and commercial momentum
The launch was China’s 35th orbital launch of 2025. It is only the third launch in June, following a busy May featuring nine launches. Major missions so far include the Shenzhou-20 crew mission to the Tiangong space station, and the Tianwen-2 near Earth asteroid sample return mission.
The Tianzhou-9 cargo mission to Tiangong is expected to launch on a Long March 7 from the coastal Wenchang spaceport no earlier than July 14.
Commercial outfits CAS Space and Landspace recently took steps towards first launches of their respective Kinetica-2 and Zhuque-3 rockets with first stage static fire tests. The inaugural launches will carry prototype low-cost cargo spacecraft. These are being developed for low-cost cargo options to Tiangong.
