China's icy eye: New satellite station braves extreme cold in far north

China has officially launched its northernmost satellite data receiving station, located in the extreme cold of Heilongjiang Province. The station's strategic high-latitude location will enhance the country's Earth observation capabilities by increasing the data reception time from polar-orbiting satellites.

The facility, which began full operation on Friday, is a key component of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) remote sensing network. Its unique geographical advantage – situated near the country's "North Pole" – allows it to extend daily reception time from polar-orbiting satellites by over 20 percent, improving the efficiency of data collection.

Located approximately two kilometers west of Mohe city, the station is the highest-latitude satellite ground station in China, a region where winter temperatures can plummet to an astonishing minus 53 degrees Celsius.

Despite the punishing environment, the Mohe station runs fully automated. It is currently tasked with receiving data from 25 of China's national land observation satellites, including the Gaofen and Ziyuan series.

The station is equipped with three reception systems, supporting S/X dual-band, dual-polarization data reception, achieving a maximum download speed of 2,000 megabits per second – twice the max speed of a gigabit home network.

Since trial operations began in October 2023, the station has successfully completed 33,411 orbital receptions, acquiring over 1,658 terabytes of data with a reception success rate exceeding 99.79 percent.