China launches Long March 2D carrier rocket
China launched a Long March 2D carrier rocket early on Friday morning to transport an Earth-observation satellite into space, according to the China National Space Administration. The rocket blasted off at 2:31 am at the Taiyuan Satellite Launch Center in northern China's Shanxi province and soon placed the Hyperspectral Multifunctional Observation Satellite into a sun-synchronous orbit 70