An atmospheric environment monitoring satellite was sent into space by the Long March-4C rocket lifting off from the Taiyuan Satellite Launch Center in Shanxi Province, north China, early Saturday.
On the satellite, orbiting around the planet now, aboard five atmospheric environmental monitoring payloads of which three are developed by Hefei Institutes of Physical Science (HFIPS), Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), namely Environmental Monitoring Instrument (EMI), Directional Polarization Camera (DPC) and Particulate Observing Scanning Polarimeter (POSP), working independently or collectively to monitor the air pollutants at global scale.
Its maximum file of view as 2,600 kilometers to cover whole planet within just one day and minimum spectrum resolution as 0.6 nanometer enables the EMI identify accurately the unique information of absorption spectra then to detect and monitor polluted gases, like nitrogen dioxide, sulfur dioxide and formaldehyde.
For DPC and POSP, the team proposed an innovative detection program, called "crossfire" that is the spatial and temporal distribution information of global atmospheric aerosols and clouds obtained by the DPC instrument and the high-precision atmospheric aerosol parameters obtained across track by the POSP instrument realize, for the first time worldwide the "polarization crossfire (PCF)" detection program of DPC and POSP to achieve quantitative observation of particulate pollution, like PM2.5, haze, etc, then to meet the application demands of global climate change research, atmospheric environment monitoring, and high-precision atmospheric correction of remote sensing data.
As the world's first satellite to detect carbon dioxide via laser technology, the atmospheric environment monitoring satellite has entered orbit. While going around the earth, it provides data support for China's atmospheric environment monitoring, global climate change research, crop yield estimation, and agricultural disaster monitoring. Saturday's launch was reportedly the 416th mission by the Long March rocket series.
Long March-4C rocket lifting off from the Taiyuan Satellite Launch Center in Shanxi Province, north China, early Saturday. (Image by xinhua news)
Hefei Institutes of Physical Science (HFIPS), Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) was working on the payloads. (Image by HFIPS)
