- China successfully sent a commercial telecommunication satellite, known as APSTAR-6D, into a planned orbit from the southwestern Xichang Satellite Launch Center.
- The APSTAR-6D telecommunication satellite was launched by a Long March-3B carrier rocket. It was developed by the China Academy of Space Technology (CAST), a subsidiary of China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation.
- The geostationary satellite, APSTAR-6D is the first satellite of China’s global, high-throughput broadband satellite communication system that will form a space-wide Internet communication network covering the whole world, similar to GPS.