Franco-Chinese gamma-ray burst mission blasts off from Xichang! [Long March 2C Y50]

A Long March 2C rocket lifted off from the Xichang Satellite Launch Center earlier today carrying the Space Variable Objects Monitor.

The SVOM spacecraft prior to encapsulation in the Long March 2C's fairing.

A Long March 2C rocket lifted off from the Xichang Satellite Launch Center earlier today carrying the SVOM, or Space Variable Objects Monitor, spacecraft into a low Earth orbit. The launch is said to have occurred at 15:00 pm China Standard Time, or 07:00 am Universal Coordinated Time.

The launch of SVOM from Xichang is the culmination of twenty years of planning, and ten years of development. SVOM is a joint gamma-ray burst mission between France and China, with a full list of collaborators from each nation available here.

Wei Jianyan, SVOM's Chinese Principal Investigator, said the following about the mission after the launch:

"We are looking forward to some important discoveries, such as the earliest gamma-ray bursts that occurred when the universe was still in its childhood, which will help us study cosmic evolution"

The remainder of this article is available on Cosmic Nxws.