Artist’s rendition of satellites orbiting the Earth – rottenman/123RF Stock Photo
September has open strongly for Earth Observation (EO) around the globe with a series of launches in China in the first week, plus an announcements on planned new satellite in Oman.
China Launches
There has been a myriad of EO launches from China over the last week. The first, around lunchtime last Friday, was the Galactic Energy’s Ceres-1 rocket which took three satellites into sun-synchronous orbits from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center. The three satellites were:
- Kaiyun-1 which is reported as carrying EO instruments with a mission of scientific research.
- Yuxing-3-08 is an EO satellite carrying a camera with a 5 metre resolution.
- Yunyao-27 – this is meteorology satellite with an infrared imager and GNSS-RO (GNSS occultation) instrument for the Chinese Yunyao Aerospace company.
On Sunday a Long March-6 rocket took off from the Taiyuan Satellite Launch Center and successfully launched a group of three Yaogan-40 03 Earth Observation satellites. There is limited information on the instrumentation and mission of these satellites, although they are reported as being reconnaissance satellites conducting electromagnetic environment detection tests.
In the early hour of Tuesday morning, a constellation of 11 satellites were launched into a low-Earth Orbit onboard the Smart Dragon-3 rocket from the Taiyuan Satellite Launch Center. The satellites are for the Chinese car manufacturer Geely Automotive and are expected to be utilised for testing autonomous driving and inter-vehicle communication; the EO related element is that the satellites are also reported as carrying payloads for ocean observation, although details are scarce.
Just before lunch on Tuesday there was another successful launch of the Yaogan-45 EO satellite via a Long March-7A from the from the Wenchang Spacecraft Launch Site. Although limited details are available on the purpose of the satellite, it is reported that the data is expected to be used for applications such as scientific research, land resource surveys, crop yield estimates, alongside disaster prevention and relief.
Oman Satellite Planned
The Oman based company, Oman Lens, has announced plans to launch a high-resolution EO satellite in the early part of next year. The aim is to have a 50cm panchromatic camera with a spatial resolution of 50 cm, together with multispectral imaging capabilities including visible and near-infrared bands. The satellite is also planned to have an artificial intelligence platform to help process imagery in space. The data is expected to be used for applications such as flood prediction, urban planning, road development and vegetation monitoring.
This will be second Oman Lens’ satellite, their first, OL1, was launched in November 2024, which provided 1m resolution imagery. This is part of the Oman Vision 2040 which has the aim of creating a regional hub for space and AI solutions in Oman.
Conclusion
China is continuing its rapid expansion of EO capabilities, but it is also interesting to see how Oman is also developing its own ambitions for space. With the United States seemingly stepping back from some EO activities, there seem to be other countries around the world hoping to fill that space.
