According to the China Academy of Sciences, China's first CO2 monitoring satellite will be launched in 2016, which will provide data for macro decision-making on energy conservation and emissions reduction.

The satellite aims to establish a ground-based data processing and verification system, improve monitoring precision to better than 4ppm, and become a feasible way of monitoring carbon dioxide throughout the world—China as well as other major regions.

The satellite development program has five systems: a satellite system, carrier rocket system, launching site system, measurement and control system, and the ground-based application system.

The main payloads of the satellite are the hyperspectral CO2 detector and multispectral cloud and aerosol detector, which are currently in research at the Changchun Institute of Optics, Fine Mechanics and Physics (CIOMP). As the flight model of the payload has already passed the vacuum environment test and will soon start lab calibration, the research has entered its final stage. 

It is worth mentioning that China's first ultraviolet ozone sounding interferometer, which is in extended service at the FY-3B meteorological satellite, has operated normally for five years. It has provided many important data for environmental monitoring, climatic prediction and global climate change research.