FY-3
Operator: China Meteorological Administration
Type of orbit: sun-synchronous, i.e. the satellite crosses a certain point always at the same time of the day.
elevation: 836 km
Period of revolution: 102 minutes, 14 orbits are achieved per day on ascending and descending passes. The period of revolution is the time taken for the satellite to complete a full rotation of the Earth.
Instrument: MERSI-2 (Medium Resolution Spectral Imager -2)
Number of spectral bands: 25
Resolution at the subsatellite point: 250 m
The radiometer scans the earth's surface line by line; each line consists of a series of individual image elements or pixels. For each pixel the radiometer measures the radiative energy of the different spectral bands. This measurement is digitally coded and transmitted to the ground station for pre-processing before being disseminated to the user community.