Cosmic Penguin

* (PROBABLE) The Yuan Wang 3 tracking ship was found crossing through the Sunda Strait of Indonesia 2 days ago into the Indian Ocean, consistent w/ an upcoming SSO launch from Taiyuan soon w/ the LM-4C rocket. A follow-on to the GF-3 C-band radar sat is there & this might be it.

* (PROBABLE) There was a mission logo of a certain “GF-11-02” that appeared last month. The launch mentioned above might be instead w/ this one & LM-4B as the last GF-11 was lifted into a 200 x 700 km polar orbit before raising its on orbit, which might mean down-range tracking.

* (RUMOR) There’s a “GF-13” out there w/ CAST’s satellite team departing on August 14. An Antonov 124 apparently flew from Beijing to Xichang 4 days later. This one is being guessed either a big GEO observation sat or an SSO Big Bird to launch on the LM-3B NET early October!

* (RUMOR) Meanwhile the Yuan Wang 6 tracking ship has ventured into the Atlantic after stopping at Durban, South Africa last week. It might *not* be related to the long rumored LM-2F launch though, w/ another rumor that it may be tracking an unknown retrograde launch next month!

* (RUMOR) It might be wrong though and maybe that LM-2F spaceplane thingy will still launch next month.....though another rumor states NET late this year or early next.

* (RUMOR) It was noticed that a regular cargo ship that had transported LM-7 stages, the Xu Yang 16, moved to Tianjin 2 days ago, & that people are wondering if we will see the 1st LM-8 to be shipped to Wenchang soon for launch before this year ends.

More news since the previous updates: * (CONFIRMED) An additional 3 sats for the Jilin-1 EO constellation was sent out on Aug. 24 (HR-02C/D/F, the previous 9 are 03x). They will fly on 3 separate launches, apparently KZ-1As out of Taiyuan in quick succession.