Image of the United Kingdom acquired by Proba-V on the 19th July 2015. Image courtesy of ESA/Belspo – produced by VITO, Creative Commons CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO
The focus this week is on the latest Earth Observation (EO) news from China and the United Kingdom (UK).
China
Two Earth Observation Satellite Launches Last Week
The first, on the 7th September, was the Yaogan 33-3 which was launched into a 688 kilometre near-polar orbit from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center onboard a Long March 4C rocket. Developed by the China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation, limited details are known about the instruments the Yaogan 33-3 carry, but they are possibly SAR instruments. It is reported the data will be used for marine and land resources surveys, agriculture production estimation, and disaster prevention and relief.
Despite its designation, this is the fourth Yaogan 33 satellite, as the first was lost on a failed launch in May 2019. Yaogan 33-1 was launched on the 28th December 2020, and Yaogan 33-2 on the 2nd September 2022.
The second satellite to be launched was from the Taiyuan Satellite Launch Center on 10th September onboard a Long March 6A rocket. This time it was a Yaogan-40 satellite, and again details on instruments are limited, although it is believed to be a Chinese military satellite and will be used for electromagnetic environment detection.
Earth Observation Data & Applications
The International Research Center of Big Data for Sustainable Development Goals, based in Beijing, last week released an atlas of urban night-time light remote-sensing data. The atlas contains 10-meter resolution night-time light data of 147 cities in 105 countries around the world, based on data acquired by the Sustainable Development Science Satellite 1 (SDGSAT-1). The SDGSAT-1 has three instruments:
- GLIMMER Imager
- Thermal IR Spectrometer
- Multispectral Imager
The data from this satellite is expected to support research on urban sustainable development.
Also taking place last week was the China International Fair for Trade in Services 2023 in Beijing. It was focused on the sectors driving the growth of the hi-tech service sector, and it highlighted cutting-edge achievements in various areas including satellite remote sensing, and artificial intelligence.
United Kingdom
Last week, it was announced that the UK and the European Union (EU) had, finally, agreed an arrangement where UK people and organizations can participate in both the Horizon and the Earth Observation Copernicus programmes.
Once this has been formally signed off, it will mean that UK researchers can, once again, participate in the remainder of the Horizon programme until 2027. From the EO side, it will mean that UK companies can once again bid for Copernicus contracts.
Access to both of these programmes ended due to Brexit, and the agreement for continued participation got bogged down in the disagreements between the UK and the EU over the Northern Ireland Protocol. Once the Windsor Framework, which was signed off in March 2023, resolved this disagreement, it also enabled discussions on the UK participation in these programmes to resume.
Participation in both of these programmes is, of course, great news for everyone working in science and EO in the UK. However, it will be interesting to see whether the UK will be as successful as it previously was in getting funding.
Summary
China continues to strengthen its remote sensing capabilities and its EO industry, and while it is fantastic that the UK can participate in the Copernicus, it remains to be seen how much this strengthens our industry or simple recovers only part of what we lost three years ago.
