AN OVERVIEW OF A NEW CHINESE WEATHER SATELLITE FY-3A

FengYun-3A (FY-3A), the first satellite in the second generation of the Chinese polar-orbiting meteorological satellites, was launched at Taiyuan, China, launching center on 27 May 2008. Equipped with both sounding and imaging pay-loads, enabling more powerful observations than the first generation of the FY-1 series, FY-3A carries 11 instruments. Two of them are the same as those on FY-1C/D, while the others, whose spectral bands cover violet, visible, near-infrared, infrared, and microwave spectral regions, are all newly developed. FY-3A instruments can be used to detect and study weather, clouds, radiation, climate, atmosphere, land, ocean, and other environmental features. FY-3A check out took about 5 months following its launch; FY-3A has been operational since January 2009. The plan for the future FY-3 series is to operate two polar-orbiting spacecraft-one in the morning and the other in the afternoon orbit-with different payloads for each spacecraft. This orbit configuration will be further coordinated with the World Meteorological Organization (WMO). One low-inclination orbit spacecraft is under consideration for radar and passive microwave precipitation measurement missions. Details are under discussion and yet to be determined. An overview of the first launch, FY-3A (the second generation of the Chinese meteorological satellites), and its imaging and sounding capabilities and potential applications are given in this paper.