Beijing, Ramadan 20, 1438, June 15, 2017, SPA -- China launched its first X-ray space telescope, which will hunt for black holes, pulsars and gamma-ray bursts, dpa reported. A rocket carrying the telescope blasted off from the Gobi Desert on Thursday. It is the latest in a series of missions conducted by China, which has outlined an ambitious space programme. The Hard X-ray Modulation Telescope (HXMT), dubbed Insight, launched at from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in north-west China, propelled by a Long March-4B rocket, according to Xinhua news agency. Insight weighs 2.5 tonnes and was sent into an orbit 550 kilometres above Earth. The telescope will be used for the study of the evolution of black holes, the use of pulsars for spacecraft navigation, and to search for gamma-ray bursts. Insight can be regarded as a small observatory in space, as it carries three detectors of various energy ranges, said Lu Fangjun, chief designer of the telescope's payload. --SPA 13:51 LOCAL TIME 10:51 GMT www.spa.gov.sa/w428516