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HELSINKI — China launched the latest in a series of clandestine satellites Thursday, using the country’s most powerful rocket to send the spacecraft to geosynchronous transfer orbit.
A Long March 5 with an elongated payload fairing lifted off at 10:30 a.m. Eastern (1430 UTC) Oct. 23 from Wenchang Satellite Launch Center on the island province of Hainan, south China. The rocket, currently China’s most powerful, climbed into the night sky above the coastal spaceport, piercing a layer of cloud.
The China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation (CASC), announced launch success just under an hour after launch, revealing the payload to be the Communications Technology Experimental Satellite-20 (Tongxin Jishu Shiyan-20 or TJS-20). The launch was likely inserted into geosynchronous transfer orbit (GTO), with U.S. Space Force’s 18th Space Defense Squadron is expected to catalog the satellite in GEO at a later date.
CASC stated only that the TJS-20 satellite will be used mainly to carry out multi-band and high-speed communication technology validation tests, echoing the description for a number of TJS series satellites, while providing no images nor further details of the satellite.
Broadly, the TJS series mainly operates in geostationary orbit (GEO). It is seen by Western analysts as potentially carrying out classified missions including signals intelligence, early warning missions, technology tests and satellite inspection activities to support the People’s Liberation Army (PLA). TJS-3, launched in 2018, released a payload of unknown purposes.
The previous TJS launches, conducted across March-May this year, appear to be a sub-series, with the mission patch each depicting one of the Four Heavenly Kings; a set of Buddhist deities each guarding one cardinal direction of the world.
China now has 18 main TJS satellites in orbit, with no apparent TJS-8 or TJS-18 satellites. It was the second satellite in the series launched via the Long March 5, which can carry 14,000 kilograms of payload into GTO and is the only Chinese launcher able to carry satellites based on CASC’s DFH-5 platform.
Most TJS missions have launched on older Long March 3 series rockets with a maximum payload to GTO of 5,500 kg. The use of the newer Long March 5 and Long March 7A rockets (7,000 kg to GTO) indicate the deployment of larger and likely more sophisticated payloads to geostationary orbit.
The launch marked China’s 65th orbital launch attempt of 2025, closing in on the country’s national record of 68 in a calendar year, set in 2024. Next up is an expected launch out of Xichang spaceport, southwest China, late October 26 Eastern, followed by the Shenzhou-21 crewed mission to the Tiangong space station, launching from Jiuquan around Oct. 31.
New commercial launchers, namely Landspace’s Zhuque-3 and Galactic Energy’s Ceres-2, could launch in the near future, though launch dates are either not public or finalized. The former rocket launch is also expected to make China’s first attempt at landing a first stage from an orbital launch attempt, launching from Jiuquan spaceport in the Gobi Desert and landing downrange.
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