Chinese-Brazilian CBERS-4 satellite successfully launched

Chinese-Brazilian CBERS-4 remote sensing satellite was successfully launched on Sunday (Dec. 7). It is the fifth remote sensing solution that has been produced in collaboration with China.

Brazil's National Institute for Space Research (INPE) reported CBERS-4 blast off from a base in Taiyuan, 700 kilometers from Beijing, carried by a Chinese Long March 4B rocket. It entered orbit 12.5 minutes after launch. According to Brazil's Space Agency (AEB), it sent its first data at 742.5 km altitude. Weighing two tons and equipped with four cameras, the satellite completes an orbit around the Earth every 100 minutes.

Introduced in the late 1980s, the Chinese-Brazilian Earth Resource Satellite program (CBERS) is run by AEB and developed by INPE.

President Dilma Rousseff said the project will enhance South-South cooperation by providing imagery to Latin American and African countries. “Its many applications include monitoring deforestation in the Amazon,” she noted.

CBERS-4 is set to complete 14 laps around the Earth daily. It can provide low-resolution images of the Earth within five days, at medium resolution in 26 days, and at high resolution, in 52 days. According to AEB, satellite images are provided free of charge to thousands of users in a range of applications from farming and environmental monitoring to urban planning. Its is estimated to remain operational for about three years.

Brazil's Minister for Science, Technology and Innovation, Clelio Campolina, AEB CEO José Raimundo Coelho, and the head of INPE, Leonel Perondi, attended the launch operation in China. In Brazil, it was monitored by specialists from INPE Satellite Control Center in São José dos Campos, São Paulo.

Originally planned for December 2015, the CBERS-4 launch was brought forward by a year following a failure launching CBERS-3 in December 2013. Other successful launches as part of the project were CBERS-1 (1999), CBERS 2 (2003), and CBERS-2B (2007).

Translated by Mayra Borges