China successfully launches new satellite for Earth observation

Beijing, April 7 (PTI): China on Thursday successfully launched a new Earth observation satellite which will become part of its land-sea radar satellite constellation and capture fine-resolution images to help Beijing safeguard its maritime rights and interests.

The satellite Gaofen-3 03 was launched from Jiuquan Satellite Launch Centre by a Long March-4C rocket and has entered the planned orbit successfully.

The satellite will be networked with the orbiting Gaofen-3 and Gaofen-3 02 satellites to form a land-sea radar satellite constellation and capture reliable, stable synthetic aperture radar (SAR) images.

Earth Observation (EO) satellites produce a large number of SAR images every day. SAR images have attracted much attention due to their all-weather operation, high spatial resolution, and recent improvements in processing these images.

These images will boast a 1-meter resolution together with a one-day revisit period, improving the monitoring capabilities of China’s land-sea radar satellites.

It will serve the fields of marine disaster prevention and mitigation, dynamic marine environment monitoring, marine research, environmental protection, water conservancy, agriculture and meteorology, while helping to safeguard maritime rights and interests, the state-run Xinhua news agency reported.

Also, the China Remote Sensing Satellite Ground Station has formally acquired the capability to receive, process and distribute the data product transmitted from the Landsat-9 satellite, according to the Aerospace Information Research Institute.

The station has received data from the Landsat-5 since 1986. It also provides Landsat-7 and Landsat-8 observation data for users, the Xinhua report said.

There are five branch stations – four in China and one in the Arctic. The stations in Beijing, Xinjiang and Hainan have completed the international ground station certification of the Landsat-9 satellite, the institute noted.

The Landsat-9 satellite was launched last September and started operation in January this year.

The China Remote Sensing Satellite Ground Station will provide Landsat-9 standard data and value-added products to users across the country as soon as possible, so as to form a continuous update of Landsat satellite observation data and meet the requirements of scientific research and application.

The China Remote Sensing Satellite Ground Station, one of the largest receivers and processors of satellites in the world, is responsible for receiving data from all of the country’s civil land observation satellites and space science satellites.