Space Applications

China attaches importance to developing all kinds of application satellites and satellite application technology, and has made great progress in remote-sensing satellites, satellite telecom, and satellite navigation. Remote-sensing and telecommunications satellites account for about 71 percent of the total number of satellites developed and launched by China. These satellites have been widely used in all aspects of economy, science, and technology as well as culture, and national defense, and yielded remarkable social and economic returns. Related departments of the state have also made active use of foreign application satellites for application technology studies, with satisfactory results.

1. Satellite Remote-Sensing

China began to use domestic and foreign remote-sensing satellites in the early 1970s, and eventually carried out studies, development, and promotion of satellite remote-sensing application technology, which has been widely applied in meteorology, mining, surveying, agriculture, forestry, water conservancy, oceanography, seismology, and urban planning.

To date, China has established the National Remote-Sensing Center, National Satellite Meteorology Center, China Resources Satellite Application Center, Satellite Oceanic Application Center, and China Remote-Sensing Satellite Ground Station, as well as satellite remote-sensing application institutes under related ministries of the State Council, some provinces and municipalities, and the Chinese Academy of Sciences.

These institutions have made use of both domestic and foreign remote-sensing satellites to carry out application studies in weather forecasting, territorial survey, agricultural output assessment, forest survey, natural disaster monitoring, maritime forecasting, urban planning, and mapping.

The regular operation of the meteorological satellite ground application system, in particular, has greatly improved the accuracy of forecasting disastrous weather and significantly reduced the economic losses of life and property from such weather.

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