The development of Fengyun-3, China's second generation of sun-synchronous orbit meteorological satellites, has been completed at Shanghai Aerospace Bureau (SAB) and it is now ready for production, according to PLA Daily on October 7.

Since the launch of the country's first meteorological satellite in 1988, seven have been sent into space and all of them -- four sun-synchronous FY-1s and three geostationary FY-2s -- have been developed by SAB.

Currently, FY-1D and FY-2C are in orbit and provide information for daily weather forecasts in China.

Compared with FY-1, FY-3 will be equipped with nine new instruments to make it more effective and powerful. It will be capable of conducting multi-spectrum and 3D global scans under all-weather conditions, which should greatly improve Earth observation and atmospheric monitoring.

The resolution of its cloud map will reach 250 meters, and some specifications will reportedly exceed US models.

The development of FY-4, the next generation of geostationary satellite, is also underway at SAB. Its scanning speed will reach 12,000 kilometers per second, its observation scope will be almost one-third of the Earth and it will take only 15 minutes to generate a panorama.

As a key development and research base of aerospace technology, SAB has been involved in over 10 launches of satellites, spacecraft and rockets in recent years.

The propulsion module, power supply system and monitoring and control communication system of Shenzhou V, China's first spacecraft, and Long March 4B rocket were all developed by SAB.

(China.org.cn by Wang Qian, October 10, 2005)