China: Gaofen-2, China's highly advanced, hi-definition earth observation satellite was launched on August 19 by a Long March-4B carrier rocket.
Placed at a polar sun-synchronous orbit at an altitude of around 630 kilometres, Gaofen-2 can render images with a ground sampling distance of 80 centimetres in panchromatic mode and 3.2 metres in multispectral mode.
It is is the second of seven satellites to be launched before 2020 for high-definition geographical mapping, resource management, precision agriculture, climate change monitoring, precision agriculture, disaster relief and urban planning.Gaofen-1 was launched in April 2013.
The rocket also carried a small scientific payload BRITE-PL-2 from Poland to be placed in orbit.
Source: China Topix
