China launches classified comms satellite, conducts commercial sea launch

China has continued a recent uptick in launch activity with a Long March 7A mission to geosynchronous orbit and a sea launch of a Ceres-1 solid rocket. A Long March 7A rocket lifted off at 7:50 a.m. Eastern (1150 UTC), May 20, from Wenchang Satellite Launch Center on Hainan island, south China. The China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation (CASC) announced launch success around an hour after liftoff, revealing the payload to be the ChinaSat 3B (Zhongxing-3B) communications satellite. More

(Source: SpaceNews - May 21)