China launches first satellite to observe Sun

BEIJING (RIA Novosti): China’s first solar observation satellite, Xihe, was successfully launched from the Taiyuan Cosmodrome on Thursday, according to the National Space Administration of China .
“On October 14 at 18:51 (13:51 Moscow time), the first satellite for the study of the Sun, Xihe, was successfully launched from the Taiyuan launch vehicle using the Changzheng-2D launch vehicle,” the message says.
It is expected that the device, opening the “era of solar studies” in China, will receive full images of the Sun in the H-Alpha range for the first time. The satellite with a mass of 550 kilograms and an estimated service life of three years will operate in a sun-synchronous orbit.
The device is named after the goddess Xihe from Chinese mythology, who, according to legend, gave birth to ten suns. The name for the satellite was chosen by the people of China themselves. Earlier, the people of China chose a name for the first domestic rover. It was named “Chzhuzhong” after the deity of fire from Chinese mythology.