New satellite heads to space

Taking off: The ‘Long March-4C’ rocket carrying the Gaofen-3 03, a new Earth-observation satellite launches from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Centre in the northwest. — China Daily/ANN

JIUQUAN: China launched a new Earth observation satellite from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in northwest China.

The satellite, Gaofen-3 03, was launched by a Long March-4C rocket at 7.47am local time on Thursday 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 images.

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

They are in a sun-synchronous orbit at an altitude of 755km.

Each circles the Earth 14.5 times a day, according to Zhang Qingjun, project manager and chief designer of the satellites at the China Academy of Space Technology.

The three-satellite network will protect China’s maritime interests, prevent and mitigate maritime disasters and enable researchers to better study the marine environment.

It will also be used in environmental protection, water conservancy, agriculture and meteorology.

The launch marks the 414th mission for the Long March series carrier rockets.

Meanwhile, 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, Chinese Academy of Sciences.The station has received data from the Landsat-5 since 1986.

It also provides Landsat-7 and Landsat-8 observation data for users.

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. — Xinhua