Wednesday, July 23, 2003
China, Brazil to jointly launch three more satellites
Press Trust of India Beijing, July 23
China and Brazil have decided to jointly launch at least three more remote sensing satellites in the "near future" to form a complete platform that will be both competitive and compatible with global needs, an official newspaper reported on Wednesday.
The new satellites will enable the two developing nations to reduce their dependence on the use of remote-sensing images provided by developed countries, 'China Daily' quoted diplomats and experts as saying.
The first China-Brazil earth resources satellite (CBERS) was launched in 1999, and the two countries plan to launch CBERS-2 later this year to further research the earth's surface, director of the China Centre for Resource Satellite Data and Applications, Guo Jianning said.
The director for earth observation at Brazil's National Institute for Space Research (INPE), Gilberto Camara said: "we have completed the final design review for CBERS-2 and are already working on the CBERS-3 and CBERS-4 satellites."
The future satellites will greatly improve the capacity for observing the earth, he said, adding that CBERS is likely to become the most used remote-sensing satellite by 2010 - not only by Brazil and China, but also by many other countries.
China and Brazil pooled their technical skills and financial resources in the late 1980s to initiate the CBERS programme.
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