China launches weather satellite

BEIJING - China Friday launched a meteorological satellite into space from the country’s northern Shanxi province, Xinhua reported.

A Long March-4C carrier rocket carried the satellite at 2.37 a.m. from the Taiyuan Satellite Launch Centre.

This is China’s second satellite of the Fengyun-3 (FY-3) series to put into space.

The satellite entered the sun-synchronous preset orbit 19 minutes later.

The centre will hand over control of the satellite to the National Satellite Meteorological Centre after in-orbit testing.

The satellite is equipped with advanced detectors and can carry out a three-dimensional, all-weather, multi-spectrum quantitative detection to acquire data from the ground, ocean and space, the launch centre said in a statement.

The satellite is expected to improve China’s meteorological observation and weather forecast capabilities.