China Attaches Importance to Satellite Application Technology

China attaches importance to developing all kinds of application satellites and satellite application technology, and has made great progress in satellite remote-sensing, satellite telecom and satellite navigation, says a white paper published Wednesday by the Information Office of the State Council.

According to the white paper titled "China's Space Activities," remote-sensing and telecommunications satellites account for about 71 percent of the total number of satellites developed and launched by China. These satellites have been widely utilized in all aspects of economy, science and technology, culture, and national defense, and yielded remarkable social and economic returns.

Related departments of the state have also made active use of foreign application satellites for application technology studies, with satisfactory results.

The white paper says that China began to use domestic and foreign remote-sensing satellites in the early 1970s, and eventually carried out studies, development and promotion of satellite remote-sensing application technology, which has been widely applied in meteorology, mining, surveying, agriculture, forestry, water conservancy, oceanography, seismology and urban planning.

To date, China has established the National Remote-Sensing Center, National Satellite Meteorology Center, China Resources Satellite Application Center, Satellite Oceanic Application Center and China Remote-Sensing Satellite Ground Station, as well as satellite remote-sensing application institutes under related ministries of the State Council, some provinces and municipalities and the Chinese Academy of Sciences.

According to the white paper, these institutions have made use of both domestic and foreign remote-sensing satellites to carry out application studies in weather forecasting, territorial survey, agricultural output assessment, forest survey, natural disaster monitoring, maritime forecasting, urban planning and mapping.

In the mid-1980s, the white paper says, China began to utilize domestic and foreign telecommunications satellites, and developed related technology to meet the increasing demands of the development of telecommunications, broadcasting and education.

In the field of fixed telecom service, China has built scores of large and medium-sized satellite telecom earth stations, with more than 27,000 international satellite telephone channels connected to more than 180 countries and regions worldwide.

The establishment of the domestic satellite public communication network, with more than 70,000 satellite telephone channels, has initially solved the problem of communication in remote areas.

The VSAT (Very Small Aperture Terminal) communication service has developed very rapidly in recent years. There are now in the country 30 domestic VSAT communication service providers and 15, 000 small station users, including over 6,300 two-way users, according to the white paper.

It says that more than 80 specialized communication networks for dozens of departments like finance, meteorology, transportation, oil, water resources, civil aviation, power, public health and the media have been built, with over 10,000 VSAT.

A satellite TV broadcasting system covering the whole world and a satellite TV education system covering the whole country have been established, according to the policy paper.

China started to use satellites for TV broadcasting in 1985, and has formed a satellite transmission network with 33 telecommunications satellite transponders responsible for transmitting 47 TV programs and educational TV programs of CCTV (China Central Television) and local TV stations throughout the country, 32 programs of the Central Broadcasting Station domestically and abroad, and about 40 local broadcasting programs.

The white paper says that ever since the opening of satellite education TV broadcasting programs over a dozen years ago, more than 30 million people have got college or technical secondary school education and training through it.

China has also set up a satellite direct broadcasting experimental platform to transmit CCTV and local satellite TV programs by digital compression to the vast rural areas which wireless TV broadcasting cannot cover. In this way, China's TV broadcasting coverage has been greatly increased. China has about 189,000 satellite TV broadcasting receiving stations.

The China broad-band multi-media education satellite transmission network has also been established on the satellite direct broadcasting experimental platform to provide comprehensive remote education and information technology services, according to the policy paper.

In the early 1980s, it says, China began to utilize other countries' navigation satellites and develop the application technology of satellite navigation and positioning, which is now widely used in many fields including land survey, ship navigation, aircraft navigation, earthquake monitoring, geological calamity monitoring, forest fire prevention and control, and urban traffic control.

After joining the COSPAS-SARSAT in 1992, China established the Chinese Mission Control Center, thus greatly improving the capability of the emergency alarm service for ships, aircraft and vehicles, it says.



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