China will expand the use of its environmental monitoring
satellites by providing more data on land, forests and farmland to
help more countries deal with natural disasters, a senior official
said yesterday.
A number of countries have showed interest in acquiring such
data from China's satellites, Li Guoping, spokesman for the China
National Space Administration (CNSA), said at a press conference on
the third Sino-Brazilian Earth resources satellite, CBERS-2B, in
Beijing.
Launched on Sept 19, CBERS-2B is China's first high-definition,
Earth-observing satellite.
It can provide the highest resolution images of any civil
satellite in China.
"Tests on data collection in Australia were conducted last year
and similar tests will be carried out this year in Africa and
Spain," Li said.
"In the near future, ground stations are expected to be built in
some countries besides China and Brazil to receive data from
CBERS-2B," he said.
In addition to paid services, the satellite is also ready to
help those who need its services, for free.
Li said China and Brazil announced in November they would share
data from Sino-Brazilian resources satellites with African
countries, as a way to support economic development in the
continent.
The CNSA also signed an international disaster-relief
cooperation charter last year, agreeing to provide free data and
information to countries hard hit by natural disasters, so they can
monitor disasters and assess their impact.
The CBERS-2B became fully operational yesterday and will replace
the CBERS-2, which was launched in 2003 and has outlived its
two-year lifespan, he said.
The administration also has plans to build two more stations in
Hainan province and Kashi in the Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region,
in addition to the three ground stations in Beijing, Urumqi and
Guangzhou, to enhance its data-collection capacity, Li said.
This year marks the 20th anniversary of Sino-Brazilian
cooperation in developing resources satellites.
Both countries are now in discussions to carry out wider
cooperation, he said.
(China Daily January 25, 2008)