China announced the successful launch of a satellite into space on Tuesday, as reported by the state broadcaster CCTV.
Africa Today News, New York, learned that at 3:03 pm Beijing time (0703 GMT) on January 9, 2024, China successfully launched the Einstein Probe satellite.
The satellite launch sparked concern in Taiwan, prompting authorities to issue emergency phone notifications advising the public to “please beware of your safety.” Taiwan’s foreign minister mentioned potential “debris” as the reason for the alert.
State media revealed that the Einstein Probe departed from the Xichang Satellite Launch Centre in southwestern Sichuan province, situated about 2,000 kilometers (1,243 miles) from Taiwan’s capital Taipei.
According to CCTV, the Einstein Probe was launched “using the Long March-2C carrier rocket… and the satellite entered its designated orbit.”
The satellite will ‘observe mysterious transient phenomena in the universe comparable to the flickering of fireworks’, state-run news agency Xinhua reported Tuesday.
It will aim to unveil ‘the violent and little-known aspects of the cosmos’, Xinhua added.
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Footage released by CCTV showed the white rocket soaring into the air in a plume of white smoke before separating in orbit.
Scientist Yuan Weimin, who led the project, was quoted by state media as describing it as the “most beautiful satellite I’ve ever seen”.
Plans for China’s “space dream” have been put into overdrive under President Xi Jinping.
In a bid to close in on the space exploration prowess of the United States and Russia, the world’s second-largest economy has injected substantial financial resources into its military-managed space venture.
October witnessed the dispatch of a new team to the Tiangong space station by the country, marking the most recent crewed mission for an expanding space initiative with aspirations to land humans on the Moon by 2030.
The US Department of Defense’s annual report to Congress in the previous year highlighted China’s remarkable strides in space exploration, citing 60 successful space launches and the placement of 180 satellites in orbit in 2022—a notable five-fold surge compared to the last five years.
The report further ranked China as the second-highest holder of operational satellites, placing just behind the United States.