Ziyuan III-01

Ziyuan 3 ( Chinese:资源 三号) is a Chinese Earth observation satellite of the Ministry of Land and Resources.

He was taken on January 9, 2012 at 03:17 UTC with a carrier rocket Long March 4 from the Baikonur Taiyuan into a sun-synchronous orbit. The rocket carried in addition to the 28 kg heavy Luxembourg satellite VesselSat 2, which is to be used to support the latest constellation of ORBCOMM satellites.

The planning by the responsible ministry began in 2005, and in 2008 the project was officially approved by the Chinese government. The technical development began in 2009 at the China Academy of Space Technology (CAST ) .. The design and tasks corresponding to the satellite the military Tianhui 1 and based on the same satellite bus as his three predecessors of Ziyuan -2 series, which from 1 September 2000 have been started.

The three -axis stabilized satellite is equipped with three high-resolution black and white cameras and an infrared multispectral and is for Cartography, for observation of soil resources, to aid in the reduction of damage caused by natural disasters as well as to assist in agriculture and many other fields are used. He flies around any point on earth within 5 days again and will be used exclusively for civil purposes. Within 59 days while the entire area between 84 ° North and 84 ° South overflown. Two of the three cameras have a resolution of 3.5 m and a swath width of 52.3 km, while the third resolution of 2.1 m and a swath width of 51.1 km of the hotel. The infrared camera has a resolution of 6.0 m and a swath width of 51.0 km. Power is supplied by two solar panels, each with 3 m span. Ziyuan 3 has a design life of five years.