{"id":35616,"date":"2025-09-01T01:50:11","date_gmt":"2025-09-01T01:50:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/35616\/"},"modified":"2025-09-01T01:50:11","modified_gmt":"2025-09-01T01:50:11","slug":"china-launches-tiny-mexican-satellites-in-rare-north-american-rocket-contract","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/35616\/","title":{"rendered":"China launches tiny Mexican satellites in rare North American rocket contract"},"content":{"rendered":"

Mexico has become the second country in North America to send satellites into orbit using a Chinese rocket<\/a> \u2013 more than half a decade after Canada blazed the trail.<\/p>\n

Two satellites from ThumbSat, a start-up based in Tijuana, just across the border from San Diego, were among a batch of seven launched into sun-synchronous orbit earlier this month by Beijing-based CAS Space on board its solid-fuel Kinetica-1 rocket.<\/p>\n

ThumbSat hailed the launch of its femtosatellites \u2013 each weighing less than 100 grams \u2013 as Mexico\u2019s first commercial mission to low Earth orbit. \u201cThe mission is simple but powerful: to prove that satellites no longer need to be big to be meaningful,\u201d it said.<\/p>\n

ThumbSat-1 carries a selfie payload while ThumbSat-2 is equipped with an artistic one. The company also plans to install small, low-cost receiving stations across Mexico, allowing students and amateur users to pick up signals and take part in the mission.<\/p>\n

CAS Space said the launch showed the growing international interest in its rockets, which offered \u201ca good balance of cost and reliability\u201d. It also called the mission a step forward in China\u2019s efforts to expand space cooperation worldwide.<\/p>\n

It was \u201ca milestone for China\u2019s entry into the North American commercial launch market\u201d, it said.<\/p>\n

The two ThumbSat satellites were developed in Mexico, with CAS Space providing a custom-built separation deployer designed for modular upgrades and future scalability.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Mexico has become the second country in North America to send satellites into orbit using a Chinese rocket…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":35617,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[270],"tags":[27685,1793,377,995,9662,381,27680,18,19,27681,17,27683,388,1539,6612,133,13647,451,27682,27684],"class_list":{"0":"post-35616","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-space","8":"tag-ahalya-araes","9":"tag-beijing","10":"tag-brazil","11":"tag-canada","12":"tag-cas-space","13":"tag-china","14":"tag-china-brazil-earth-resources-satellite-programme","15":"tag-eire","16":"tag-ie","17":"tag-international-traffic-in-arms-regulations-itar","18":"tag-ireland","19":"tag-kinetica-1-rocket","20":"tag-mexico","21":"tag-north-america","22":"tag-san-diego","23":"tag-science","24":"tag-south-america","25":"tag-space","26":"tag-thumbsat","27":"tag-tijuana"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35616","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=35616"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35616\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/35617"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=35616"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=35616"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=35616"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}