China launches new Fengyun meteorological satellite

China launched a new Fengyun meteorological satellite, which will also contribute to a global green mission, from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in northwest China on Saturday.

A Long March-4C rocket, carrying the Fengyun-3 08 satellite, blasted off at 3:28 a.m., and sent the satellite into the preset orbit.

Both the rocket and the satellite are developed by Shanghai Academy of Spaceflight Technology.

The satellite will be mainly used for weather forecasting, atmospheric chemistry and climate change monitoring.

It operates in a sun-synchronous orbit and is equipped with nine remote sensing instruments, including a medium-resolution spectral imager, an infrared hyperspectral atmospheric detector and a microwave imager, achieving high-precision global greenhouse gas detection with a 100-kilometer width, a scale not reached before.

Fengyun-3 08 will form a cluster with two other Fengyun satellites to achieve 100 percent global coverage of observation data. This network of satellites will reduce the update time of weather data required for numerical weather forecasting assimilation from 6 hours to 4 hours. Furthermore, it will extend the weather forecast by about 24 hours, and improve disaster monitoring efficiency by nearly 100 percent, significantly enhancing weather prediction and forecasting capabilities.

Long March-4C is a three-stage liquid-propellant carrier rocket capable of launching various types of satellites with different orbit requirement. It supports launch of single or multiple satellites in one mission.

The rocket has a carrying capacity of up to 3 tonnes to a sun-synchronous orbit at an altitude of 700 kilometers, and is designed for all-weather and all-day launch operations.

The launch marks the 596th flight mission of the Long March carrier rocket series.