China launches Ziyuan-1 02E satellite via Chang Zheng 4C

China has deployed a new Earth resources observation satellite Sunday via its Chang Zheng 4C rocket. The Ziyuan-1 02E satellite, along with an amateur radio CubeSat, lifted off from the Taiyuan Satellite Launch Center at 03:11 UTC (11:11 Beijing Time).

Ziyuan (ZY), meaning Resource, is a series of remote-sensing satellites which China uses to acquire high-resolution images that can be used for surveying Earth resources, disaster management, and ecological and land use monitoring.

The first Ziyuan satellite, Ziyuan-1 01, was launched in 1999 in a partnership between China and the Brazilian national space agency, INPE. Six of the nine Ziyuan satellites launched to date have been part of the China-Brazil Earth Resources Satellite (CBERS) program, with the other three – including Ziyuan-1 02E – being solely Chinese-operated. Three more all-Chinese Ziyuan-3 satellites have also been launched, while the designation Ziyuan-2 was applied to a trio of military reconnaissance satellites deployed in the early 2000s, which are not part of the civilian Ziyuan series.

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