China Launches Two More BeiDou Satellites

July 27, 2015 - By GPS World Staff

News courtesy of CANSPACE Listserv.

Two BeiDou navigation satellites were launched into medium Earth orbit on Saturday, July 25, at 12:29:04.411 UTC, according to a NASASpaceFlight.com Forum blog. The satellites are drifting to their designated orbits. U.S. Joint Space Operations Center / NORAD is tracking the satellites.

The satellites are designated BDS M1-S and M2-S — the “S” in the satellite names might stand for “Test” (in Chinese: 试验 = Shiyan).

Useful information on the satellites (use Google Translate to translate into English).
Video of launch included in the July 26 CCTV-13 9:00 a.m. newscast (CCTV-13 = China Central Television news channel).
Amateur video of launch.

The latest two-line orbital elements:

TBA – TO BE ASSIGNED
1 40748U 15037A 15208.09343909 -.00000034 00000-0 00000+0 0 9999
2 40748 054.9754 077.2415 0118470 176.9315 037.1295 01.82959902 33

TBA – TO BE ASSIGNED
1 40749U 15037B 15208.10175551 -.00000033 00000-0 00000+0 0 9997
2 40749 055.0117 077.2340 0061520 179.3844 043.4658 01.84512260 30