Ministry takes control of marine observation satellites

The Ministry of Natural Resources formally took over operation of two marine observation satellites on Thursday.

Control of the HY-1D and HY-2C satellites was handed over to the ministry by the China National Space Administration after the successful completion of trial operations in orbit. They are tasked with providing data that will be used in China's marine resources development, marine environmental protection, disaster prevention and relief at sea, maritime traffic coordination, polar exploration and climate change research, the ministry said in a statement.

HY-1D was launched atop a Long March 2C carrier rocket in June last year from the Taiyuan Satellite Launch Center in Shanxi province and now operates in a sun-synchronous orbit.

It works with its predecessor－HY-1C, which was launched in September 2018－as part of a small network for scientific marine observation. Its task is to observe seawater color and coastal resources and environments, and track the locations of ships.

Data obtained by HY-1C and HY-1D has been used in the monitoring and forecasting of incidents including green tides, typhoons and oil spills, as well as the mariculture sector, the statement said.

HY-2C was deployed by a Long March 4B rocket in September from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in the northwestern Gobi Desert. It has now been placed in a frozen orbit.

The third HY-2 series marine satellite, like its predecessors, HY-2C is responsible for studying the dynamic marine environment.

China began discussing the construction of marine research satellites in the 1980s and launched the first such satellite, HY-1A, in May 2002, laying the foundation for an oceanographic monitoring system.

The latest oceanographic research satellite, HY-2D, was launched on a Long March 4B rocket from Jiuquan in May.

Pang Zhihao, a space industry observer and retired researcher at the China Academy of Space Technology, said there are only a handful of countries that can independently design and build marine observation satellites, including the United States, France, Russia and China.

"The main difficulty in building such spacecraft lies in their payloads, namely the cameras, sensors and radars, which must be of very high precision and must be able to handle the detailed marine environment," he said.