China’s first polar- observing satellite, BNU-1 has captured 2501 images covering the Antarctic and Arctic regions after orbiting Earth for a full year, its owner, Beijing Normal University(BNU), had said on Saturday.
Among all the images, 850 are of the Antarctic ice sheet and 1025 picture of Arctic regions.
The satellite made a total of more than 240 high-quality remote sensing scenes, which captured the picture of the North and South Poles in partly cloudy weather with a resolution of 80 meters. The satellite launched on September 12, 2019, is also called “Ice Pathfinder”. It is the first member of China’s polar observation satellite constellation.
Chen Zhuoqi, the satellite operations team leader and also an associate professor at Guangzhou- based on Sun Yat-sen University said,” During its in-orbit operation, the satellite continuously monitored then huge ice calving, which occurred on the Amery Ice Shelf in September 2019.
Also, the satellite has completed a remote sensing mapping of Greenland with a resolution of 70meters in 2020.
With the support of the country’s Ministry of Science and Technology, the satellite was designed by BNU and jointly developed by China Great Wall Industry Corporation and the Shenzhen Aerospace Dongfanghong satellite Co. Ltd.
According to BNU, the satellite is mainly furnished with a high dynamic range specially designed for polar observation and is suitable for polar mid-latitude environmental monitoring.
Wn added that the release of data is an invitation to researchers around the world who focus on polar research to jointly explore the application value of the data.
Source(s): CGTN
