JIUQUAN, Jan. 20 -- China on Monday launched a CERES-1 carrier rocket with five satellites onboard.

The rocket blasted off at 6:11 p.m. (Beijing Time) from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in northwest China and sent a group of satellites, including the Yunyao-1 37-40 and JTX-A-05 models, into their planned orbits.

The four satellites, Yunyao-1 37-40, are all equipped with the Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) occultation payload, which can obtain information on atmospheric temperature, humidity, pressure and ionospheric electron density.

The JTX-A-05 satellite is equipped with a hyperspectral camera payload to acquire remote sensing images, which can be used in many fields such as ecological environment surveillance, agricultural monitoring, mineral exploration, forest management and urban planning.

According to Galactic Energy, the rocket developer in the private sector, CERES-1 has successfully completed 16 launches so far, sending 63 satellites into preset orbits -- making it a leading commercial launch vehicle in the private sector of China's space industry with the largest number of launches and the highest success rate.