On December 17, 2015, at 00:12 UTC the “Long March –2D” (“Changzheng-2D”) rocket-carrier was launched from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in Jiuquan, Gansu Province, the northwest of China. The rocket orbited the “DAMPE” space probe. The Dark Matter Particle Explorer, or DAMPE, mission is the first dedicated astrophysics observatory put into orbit by China. Chinese officials announced that the DAMPE mission would be nicknamed "Wukong" after a global naming campaign garnered 32000 name suggestions. Wukong is a fictional monkey king in the Chinese fairy tale “Journey to the West.