China planning to launch satellite to monitor Arctic shipping routes
- Probe will be able to ‘observe with a level of accuracy and frequency superior to existing polar satellites’, developers say
- Launch expected to take place some time in 2022
“The satellite has a global observation capability but will focus on changes in Arctic sea ice,” said Cheng Xiao, dean of the school of geospatial engineering and science at Guangzhou-based Sun Yat-sen University, which is developing the probe.
“Compared with similar satellites, it is capable of revisiting most of the Arctic every two days and will be able to observe with a level of accuracy and frequency superior to existing polar satellites,” he was quoted by Xinhua as saying at a seminar last week.
Cheng said the designs for the satellite platform and its payloads were almost complete and the launch was expected to happen in 2022.
The satellite would be placed in a sun-synchronous orbit at an altitude of 720km (450 miles), allowing it to provide high-quality images of the shipping lanes and the Arctic sea ice condition in near real time, he said.