China Announces Plans to Launch A Satellite For Sri Lanka In 2018

China has announced plans to launch a satellite for Sri Lanka, in 2018.

"Expected launches for 2018 include more than 10 Beidou GNSS satellites - China's answer to GPS of the US - including a number of dual satellite launches to medium Earth orbits. China had aimed for 6-8 such satellites to be launched in 2017, but a partial failure of the Long March 3B rocket in June dented these plans," gbtimes, in an article, said. 

It also added, "A number of satellites for the Haiyang (ocean observation), Fengyun (weather), Yaogan (remote sensing and/or reconnaissance), Gaofen and Ziyuan (Earth observation) and Zhongxing (telecommunications) satellite series will be launched, as well as satellites for Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and Sri Lanka, and commercial companies GomSpace, Satellogic, Changguang (Jilin), SpaceTY, Kepler Communications, SuperView (Gaojing) and others."

In 2012, China launched a Satellite for Sri Lanka, stirring up a controversy in the local political domain as former President Mahinda Rajapaksa's son, Rohitha Rajapaksa, was involved in the project.