CBERS-1

China–Brazil Earth Resources Satellite 1 (CBERS-1), also known as Ziyuan I-01 or Ziyuan 1A, is a remote sensing satellite which was operated as part of the China–Brazil Earth Resources Satellite programme between the China National Space Administration and Brazil's National Institute for Space Research. The first CBERS satellite to fly, it was launched by China in 1999.

CBERS-1 was a  spacecraft built by the China Academy of Space Technology and based on the Phoenix-Eye 1 satellite bus. The spacecraft was powered by a single solar array, providing 1,100 watts of electricity for the satellite's systems. The instrument suite aboard the CBERS-1 spacecraft consisted of three systems: the Wide Field Imager (WFI) produced visible-light to near-infrared images with a resolution of  and a swath width of ; a high-resolution CCD camera was used for multispectral imaging at a resolution of  with a swath width of ; the third instrument, the Infrared Multispectral Scanner (IMS), had a resolution of  and a swath width of .

A Chang Zheng 4B carrier rocket, operated by the China Academy of Launch Vehicle Technology, was used to launch CBERS-1. The launch took place at 03:15 UTC on 14 October 1999, using Launch Complex 7 at the Taiyuan Satellite Launch Centre. The satellite was successfully placed into a sun-synchronous orbit.

CBERS-1 was decommissioned in September 2003, almost four years after launch. The derelict satellite remains in orbit; as of 30 November 2013 it is in an orbit with a perigee of , an apogee of , 98.34 degrees inclination and a period of 100.35 minutes. The orbit has a semimajor axis of , and eccentricity of 0.0004025.

References

Category:Spacecraft launched in 1999
Category:China–Brazil Earth Resources Satellite program
Category:Satellites of Brazil
Category:Satellites of China
Category:1999 in China