China aims at building up a comprehensive
Earth observation system. Since DFH-1, the first Chinese
satellite in 1970, many Earth observation missions have
been launched, including meteorological satellites, Earth
resource satellites, marine satellite, small satellites
and manned spacecrafts.
China is capable in designing airborne and spaceborne
remote sensors, covering a spectrum of visible, near infrared,
thermal infrared and microwave. The sensors have been
successfully operated in various satellite missions.
The Chinese Earth observation system has been fully applied
in many social and economic development fields such as
weather forecasting, ocean exploration, natural resource
investigation, and disaster monitoring and management.
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Through continuous efforts over passed twenty years,
China has developed capacities in spaceborne and airborne
remote sensing platforms, satellite ground stations,
and data processing and application facilities.
China established an all-weather airborne remote sensing
system of airplane, airborne sensor, and real-time transmission
via communication satellite.
China developed various spaceborne and airborne remote
sensors, including high-resolution CCD camera, hyperspectral
scanner, imaging spectrometer, synthetic aperture radar,
microwave radiometer/scatterometer, and three-dimensional
imager.
1) FY meteorological satellites
China began to develop its meteorological satellites
from end 1970s. Four polar-orbit meteorological satellites
(FY-1 A, B, C, D) were launched in 1988, 1990, 1999
and 2002 separately, and two geostationary meteorological
satellites (FY-2 A, B) were put into orbit in last five
years.
FY-1 are meteorological satellites working in polar
Sun synchronous orbit, which is utilized for weather
forecasting, climate study, disaster management and
global environment monitoring.
FY-2 series is composed of five geostationary meteorological
satellites. Based on successful experimental services
of FY-2 A & B, other three will be launched in coming
years for full operation.
A color cloud image from FY-2B
2) Earth resource satellites
China-Brazil Earth Resources Satellite (CBERS) series
are jointly developed by China and Brazil. Three sensors
(a CCD camera, a infrared multi-spectral scanners and
a wide field imager) were onboard CBERS-1A, which was
launched in 1999. CBERS-1B was successfully launched
on October 21th, 2003. The CCD camera works in five
spectral bands from visible to near-infrared, with a
spatial resolution of 19.5 m.
So far, more than 8,000 scenes of CBERS-1A covering
99.8 % territory of China were received and processed
for 134 users.
A CBERS-1B image received by Brazil. Andes Mountain
covered by snow is on the right, and the Pacific Ocean
on the left.
3) Marine satellite
HY-1A was successfully launched on May 15, 2002 in a
sun synchronous near-circular orbit, with a 10-band
ocean color scanner and a 4-band CCD camera. HY-1A is
the first experimental marine satellite of China, with
main task to observe ocean optical characteristics such
as chlorophyll concentration, suspended sediment, soluble
organic matter. The satellite is also used for studies
on contaminants, shallow sea-floor mapping, current
characteristics and aerosol near sea surface.
Marine Satellite HY-1A
To be replaced by launching image
4) Earth observation small satellites
China pays importance to development of small satellites,
and successfully launched Earth observation small satellites
of ¡°Shijian-5¡± and ¡°Qinghua-1¡±. China has initiated
development of a multi-purpose Earth observation small
satellite platform to meet the needs of various Earth
observation missions for environment monitoring, disaster
management and ocean exploration.
On May 10 1999, a Long March 4B launch vehicle simultaneously
launched FY-1C and Shijian-5 into the orbit at s 870
km.
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