Gaofen 5-02 satellite launched from Taiyuan

Designers at the academy mounted seven imagers and sensors on that spacecraft that are capable of obtaining spatial, spectral and radioactive data.

The satellite's service will greatly strengthen the country's environmental protection efforts, improve its natural resources surveillance, improve disaster prevention and relief work and boost climate change research, the State-owned space conglomerate said.

China launched the Gaofen program in May 2010 and listed it as one of the 16 most important projects in the nation's science and technology industry. The program aims to form a space-based, high-resolution Earth-observation network. By now, 24 Gaofen satellites have been launched, and all of them are believed to be in active service.

Images and data from the Gaofen satellites have been widely used in more than 20 industries across China and have helped reduce the country's dependence on foreign remote-sensing products.

Registered users around the world can access images and data generated by Gaofen satellites via a website operated by the China National Space Administration.