Main Products of China’s Two New Fengyun Meteorological Satellites to Be Open to Global Users

Zhuang Guotai, Party Secretary and Director of China Meteorological Administration, announced at the Executive Council of the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) on Tuesday that the main data products of Fengyun-3E and Fengyun-4B satellites will be open to global users.

The Fengyun-3E satellite was successfully launched on July 5, 2021 and is the world’s first meteorological satellite in dawn-dusk orbit for civil service. The satellite carries with it eleven kinds of payloads including 3 newly developed instruments, which provides observation data in the morning and evening period of global numerical weather forecasting models.

The Fengyun-4B satellite was launched on June 3, 2021 and inherited the mature technology of the Fengyun-4A test satellite. The satellite isoptimized and redesigned to fully exploit the satellite platform and payload capability, improve the overall reliability, stability and detection accuracy of the satellite, and has an imaging capability of 250-meters resolution area within minutes.

The Fengyun-3E and Fengyun-4B satellites and their ground application systems were put into business trial operation beginning June 1 this year. After the trial operation, Fengyun-3E and Fengyun-3C and 3D satellites formed a three-star network, which now provides a complete global observation data for the numerical forecasting model every 6 hours, effectively improving the accuracy and timeliness of global numerical weather forecasting, and is of great significance for improving the global Earth observation system.

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During the on-orbit test, the Fengyun-3E Satellite released three batches of observation products, which played an important role in recent “La Niña” events, the melting of glaciers in the North and South Poles, and the solar outbreak and typhoon monitoring. Meanwhile, the Fengyun-4B satellite provided support for meteorological services during the Winter Olympics by using quantitative products such as high spatial and temporal resolution images and snow cover, and now plays a role in monitoring events such as the recent volcanic eruption in Tonga.

Up until now, China has successfully launched 19 Fengyun meteorological satellites of four types and two generations, of which seven are now in orbit and continuously providing data products and services to 124 countries and regions around the world.