Satellite to keep an eye on Earth
20/9/2007 9:48
China launched its third Earth resources satellite developed with Brazil
yesterday and the two nations will jointly develop two more
satellites.
The satellite, named 02B, was launched on a Chinese Long
March-4B carrier rocket which blasted off at 11:26am from the Taiyuan Satellite
Launch Center in north China's Shanxi Province.
The satellite separated
from the rocket 12 minutes after lift-off, entering its preset sun-synchronous
orbit, at a perigee of 738 kilometers and an apogee of 750
kilometers.
The 1,452-kilogram satellite with a designed lifespan of two
years will gather information about resources and send images and data to China,
Brazil and other countries, for use in agriculture, environmental protection,
city planning and land resource surveys.
This is the third Earth
resources satellite developed by the China Academy of Space Technology and the
Brazilian National Space Research Institute (INPE). The other two satellites
were launched in 1999 and 2003.
They are remote sensing satellites that
collect information with high definition cameras.
The previous two
Sino-Brazilian satellites, with 1,200 users in China and 3,000 users in Brazil,
have produced more than one million images.
Zhang Qingjun, chief designer
of the satellite, told Xinhua: "China and Brazil will cooperate to develop two
more Earth resources satellites.
"At least one of the satellites will be
launched within the next two years.
"If everything goes smoothly, we will
be able to provide data to our users until 2015," he said.
China and
Brazil have cooperated in satellite development since 1988. The CAST is
responsible for the satellite system concept, the development of the thermal
control subsystem, orbit control subsystem and onboard data
management.
The INPE is responsible for the structural subsystem, power
subsystem, and data collection.
"We hope to continue to learn from each
other and strengthen our cooperation in aeronautics," he said. Satellite 02B is
the 38th successful satellite launched at the Taiyuan Satellite Launch
Center.
Xinhua
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