Beijing – China has on Tuesday launched its 19th rocket of the year, sending its most sophisticated observation satellite into high Earth orbit.
A report from Xichang space centre in the south-western province of Sichuan, said the “Long March-3B carrier rocket bearing the Gaofen-4 satellite’’ blasted off shortly after midnight on Tuesday from the centre.
It said “Gao fen” means “high resolution” in English, and Gaofen-4’s camera can pick out an oil tanker at sea, was the 222nd Long March rocket flight.
“The first in a series of seven, Gaofen-1 was launched in April 2013.[pro_ad_display_adzone id=”70560″]
“The last two are expected in orbit by 2020 at the latest,’’ it said.
The centre explained further that Gaofen-1 and Gaofen-2 are circling 600 to 700 kilometres above the planet, while Gaofen-4 is in a synchronous high Earth orbit of 36,000 kilometres.
It said the Gaofens provide Near-Real-Time observations for disaster prevention and relief, climate change monitoring, geographical mapping, environmental and resource surveying, as well as precision agriculture support. (dpa/NAN)
