Shiyan-13 satellite is launched on January 17, 2022 from the Taiyuan Satellite Launch Center in North China’s Shanxi province. Photo: Xinhua

Staff at the Xi'an Satellite Control Center successfully launched a new satellite, China's first in 2022, refuting doubts over the Chinese aerospace industry's 2022 schedule amid outbreaks of COVID-19 throughout the country.

China launched a new satellite on Monday from the Taiyuan Satellite Launch Center in North China's Shanxi province. The Shiyan-13 satellite was launched by a Long March-2D rocket at 10:35 am, local time, and entered the planned orbit. 

In China's first launch this year, the satellite developing teams could not go to Xi'an to complete the launch together with staff at the Xi'an satellite control center.

"According to the normal procedure, the satellite developing teams would come to Xi'an about two weeks before the launch to make preparations with staff at the Xi'an center. They will stay until the satellite enters working orbit and starts operations," Wei Jun, senior engineer at the Xi'an center and leader of the control team of Monday's launch, told the Global Times.

However, Xi'an is still under lockdown due to the epidemic and all public transportation connecting the city with the outside has been suspended. For this reason, the satellite developers could not enter the city on this occasion.

This is the first time this has happened in decades, a staff at the Xi'an center who wished to remain anonymous, told the Global Times .

To guarantee a successful launch, Wei and his colleagues checked a list of 32 potential problems during blastoff and dealt with them one by one. 

The staff in Xi'an also built a special network with developers to secure safe data transmission, according to Zhang Hanyong, network engineer at the Xi'an center.      

China eyes 40-plus launches in 2022, which will include six major flights to the space station, two cargo ships, two manned ships and two experimental modules, according to the state-owned space giant, China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation.

The six major lunches to the space station will determine whether China can finish the construction of its space station by the end of the year as planned. 

The latest outbreaks of COVID-19 across China have triggered doubts over the schedule but the success of Monday's launch broke them.