China's polar-observing satellite starts Arctic mission

BEIJING -- China's first polar-observing satellite has started its Arctic observation mission after orbiting Earth for nine months, sources in its operations team said Tuesday.

The mission will test the observation capabilities of the satellite, which is expected to achieve full coverage of the Arctic in seven days, said the operations team leader, Chen Zhuoqi, who is also an associate professor at the School of Geospatial Engineering and Science under the Sun Yat-Sen University in Guangzhou.

Since its launch on September 12, 2019, the satellite called "Ice Pathfinder" (Code: BNU-1) has completed its Antarctic observation mission, sending back more than 1,000 images covering the south polar region.

After more than one month of in-orbit debugging and testing, the satellite platforms and sensors are in good operating condition. The first batch of Arctic data has been processed, said Cheng Xiao, lead scientist of the satellite project and professor at the Sun Yat-Sen University.