ISTANBUL

China launched a new group of satellites into orbit on Thursday, marking the 550th flight of the Long March rocket series, according to state-run media.

The satellites, part of the Spacesail Constellation project's third batch, were sent into orbit at 12.41 p.m. local time (0441GMT) from the Taiyuan Satellite Launch Center in northern Shanxi province aboard a modified Long March-6 rocket, Xinhua reported.

On Wednesday, a separate launch occurred at the Xichang Satellite Launch Center in southwestern Sichuan province.

A Kuaizhou-1A rocket deployed a remote-sensing satellite equipped with synthetic aperture radar (SAR) into its planned orbit at 12.46 p.m. local time.