China launched a new remote sensing satellite from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center to provide photographs to commercial clients while helping with harvest assessment, geological disaster prevention and resource surveys.

The Jilin-1 satellite constellation was developed on China’s Jilin Province and is the country’s first self-developed remote sensing satellite for commercial use. Data will be provided to commercial clients to help them forecast and mitigate geological disasters, as well as shorten the time scale for the exploration of natural resources.

The satellites were developed by partner CGSTL under the Changchun Institute of Optics, Fine Mechanics and Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences.

The new satellite, Jilin-1 Gaofen-2A, is the 14th satellite of the Jilin-1 constellation and will be operational at an altitude of 535 km orbit. The satellite can obtain a static push-scan image with a full-color resolution better than 0.76 meters and a multi-spectral resolution better than 3.1meters. Images width is greater than 40 km. The images are transmitted to the ground stations via digital transmission with a rate of 1.8Gbps. The launch weight is 230 kg.

High resolution Earth imaging satellite for the Jilin-1 commercial EO satellite constellation.