On 6 August 2024 at 06:42 UTC, China launched its first set of eighteen flat panel satellites associated with the Thousand Sails Constellation project, also known as Qiānfān xīngzuò. It used the Long March 6A carrier vehicle and was China's 35th orbital launch in the year 2024.
The rocket launched from the Taiyuan Launch Complex located in the north of Shanxi Province, and brought the satellites into a polar orbit. The Chinese Academy of Sciences and the China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation both reported that the space mission was "a complete success".
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However, the United States Space Command reported that soon after the delivery of 18 satellites, the upper stage of Long March 6A broke apart and created a cloud of debris of “over 300 pieces of trackable debris in low-Earth orbit”.
THE MISSION WAS A COMPLETE SUCCESS