China's first two satellites dedicated to environment and disaster monitoring began official operations on 30 March, according to Chinese state media.
The satellites, Huanjing-1A and Huanjing-1B (huanjing means ‘environment' in Chinese), will be used by the Ministry of Civil Affairs, in charge of disaster relief and reduction, and the Ministry of Environmental Protection.
They will also provide data to the UN Platform for Space-based Information for Disaster Management and Emergency Response (UN-SPIDER) via the soon-to-be opened Beijing office, Chen Qiufa from the State Administration of Science Technology and Industry for National Defence told Xinhua News Agency.
Both satellites are equipped with advanced optical, thermal infrared and hyper-spectral remote sensing equipment. They each carry two charge coupled device cameras with 30 metre resolution and 720 km width. Huanjing-1A also carries imaging multi-spectral (visible/infrared) radiometers with a spatial resolution 100 metres. Huanjing-1B carries an infrared camera with a maximum resolution of about 150 metres. They can jointly image China's entire territory in two days.
Since beginning trial services late last year, the satellites have provided images for members of Asia-Pacific Space Co-operation and the Australian government during the bushfires disasters that struck the country's southeast in February.
The satellites were launched on 6 September 2008 from the Taiyuan Satellite Launch Center in Shanxi province. They were placed into sun-synchronous orbits in the same orbital plane of 97.95 degrees at 650 km altitude. They passed in-orbit testing in February.
Huanjing-1A and Huanjing-1B are the first in a planned constellation of four optical and four radar satellites dedicated to environmental and disaster monitoring. All the satellites will be capable of visible, infrared, multi-spectral and synthetic aperture radar imaging. Eventually, the constellation will be able to capture a complete image of China every 12 hours.
Chinese officials expect to launch the radar satellite Huanjing-1C this year. Huanjing-1C will carry an S-band synthetic aperture radar for continuous, all-weather imaging. The SAR instrument will have a swath width of 100 km and be capable of 20 metre resolution imagery. The satellite will be placed in a 500 km, 97.3 degree, sun-synchronous orbit.
Source; www.asmmag.com & news.xinhuanet.com
