China's commercial rocket maker puts two satellites into orbit

CAS Space, a leading commercial rocket maker in China, launched the 10th rocket in its Kinetica 1 series on Sunday morning, successfully putting two experimental satellites into their preset orbital positions.

The rocket lifted off at 11:32 am from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in northwestern China's Gobi Desert and then placed the payloads — the Chutian 2A and 2B technology demonstration satellites — into orbit, the company said in a statement.

The satellites were developed by CASIC Space Engineering Development, a subsidiary of the China Aerospace Science and Industry Corp Second Academy in Beijing.

After entering orbit, they are tasked with verifying their Earth observation and hyper-resolution processing and application capabilities.