Nimble Chinese satellite grabs hi-res images of US city in seconds: researchers
- The Beijing-3 small commercial satellite can take images while rotating at up to 10 degrees per second, a speed not seen on a satellite before: paper
- Coupled with AI on board, the satellite can monitor up to 500 areas of interest around the globe with nearly 100 revisits a day
In just 42 seconds, a small Chinese satellite captured images of a large area around a US city that would be sharp enough to identify a military vehicle on the street and tell what type of weapon it might be carrying, say scientists reporting on the breakthrough.
Most Earth observation satellites must be stable when taking images because attitude control mechanisms can produce vibrations that blur the images. But in this experiment on June 16, the Beijing-3 rolled and yawed wildly, the dramatic motion changing the angle of its camera’s line of sight to the ground when flying over North America. The movement allowed it to capture a larger area than satellites have managed until now.
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China’s nimble Beijing-3 satellite does unprecedented rapid scan of San Francisco
The image, taken from an altitude of 500 kilometres (310 miles), had a resolution of 50 centimetres per pixel. The performance test over North America and other areas showed that the satellite could take images while its body was twisting at up to 10 degrees per second, a speed not seen on a satellite before.
“China started relatively late on agile satellite technology, but achieved a large number of breakthroughs in a short period of time,” said project lead scientist Yang Fang and her colleagues of the DFH Satellite Company writing in a paper published in the domestic peer-reviewed journal Spacecraft Engineering this month. “The level of our technology has reached a world leading position.”
Despite its small size and relatively low cost, Beijing-3 was deemed as the most nimble satellite and could be one of the most powerful Earth observation satellites ever built, according to Yang.
A satellite in the lower orbit could usually observe a straight, narrow strip of area underneath it. It must circle the Earth multiple times or work with other satellites to cover a region of interest.