A Chinese Long March 4B rocket took a Haiyang oceanography satellite to orbit early Wednesday morning. Liftoff from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center occurred approximately 12:03 PM local time (04:03 UTC) on 19 May.
The Haiyang-2D satellite, the fourth in the Haiyang-2 series and eighth Haiyang satellite overall, was deployed into sun synchronous orbit to conduct oceanographic research.