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Application Satellites

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2013-06-03

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Application satellites are playing an increasingly important role in fields such as satellite navigation, terrestrial weather forecast, and mobile phone communication. NSSC is responsible for the payload development for application satellites, such as FY-3A (literally means “Wind and Cloud-3A”) and HY-2 (literally means “Oceans-2”).

Fengyun (FY), which literally means “wind and cloud”, is a series of Chinese weather satellites.

The FY-3 satellite series is China’s second-generation polar orbit meteorological satellite. So far, three satellites in the series – FY-3A, FY-3B and FY-3C – have been successfully launched. NSSC was responsible for the development and calibration of 40 payloadson board four FY satellites, a majority of which are related to space environment exploration, and microwave and remotesensing.

Soaring into space on May 27, 2008 from the Taiyuan Satellite Launch Center, FY-3A was the first satellite in the FY-3 series. From 2008 to 2013, three NSSC-developed payloads on board the FY-3A meteorological satellite – the Microwave Humidity Sounder (MWHS), the Ultraviolet Ozone Unit (TOU) and the Space Environment Monitor (SEM) – functioned quite well, orbiting Earth and providing organizations such as the China Meteorological Administration with real-time scientific data. It is also noteworthy that FY-3A has a design life of two years, but has been in service for five years. To mark FY-3A’s fifth anniversary, on June 25,2013, a celebration and award ceremony were held in Beijing.

On Sept. 23, 2013, FY-3C, the third satellite in the FY-3 series, was successfully launched from the Taiyuan Satellite Launch Center, and was later boosted into predetermined orbit. There are four NSSC-developed payloads onboard, including the above-mentioned MWHS, TOU and SEM and the GNSS Occultation Sounder (GNOS). Of these, GNOS is a brand new payload designed for global three-dimensional and vertical sounding of the Earth’s atmosphere. Since being powered on, GNOS has been operating normally in orbit. For the first time in the world, GNOS achieved space-borne positioning using BDS signals and received BDS radio occultation (RO) signals. Its RO detection ability has reached an international level.

HY-2, China's maritime satellite, will play an important role in prevention and reduction of maritime disasters. The HY-2 carried four scientific instruments as payloads, among them, the Microwave Altimeter, the Calibration Radiometer, the Microwave Scatterometer, are developed by NSSC, CAS.

　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　 Application satellite for multiple uses (Image by NSSC)