The Cheorian 2B, a geostationary marine and environmental satellite developed by domestic technology, was launched today (19th) at 7:18 am (18:18 pm local time) at the Guiana Space Center in French Guiana, South America.


The satellite will enter the transition orbit 26 minutes after launch.

The transition trajectory is an elliptical orbit that connects 251 km away from the Earth and 35,822 km away.

After 31 minutes of launch, the satellite is removed from the projectile, and 40 minutes after launch, Yassra, Australia, makes a first contact with the tracking station.

Cheon Lian 2B is a marine and environmental observation satellite. Since 2011, Korea Aerospace Research Institute, Korea Ocean Science and Technology Institute, Korea Aerospace Industries, Volvo Aerospace, USA, and Airbus have been participating.

The 2nd successor to the 2nd generation, 2A and 2B, is the successor of Cheon Lian No. 1 because the performance of each payload is greatly improved.

Since the high-performance payloads could not be loaded in one satellite, two twin satellites were produced and the mission of 'weather observation' and 'environmental and marine observation' were divided.

The weather payload of the Cheon Lian 2A is four times higher resolution than the Cheon Lian 1, and the number of channels of the weather sensor is 16 times more than three times that of the 1 (5).

The resolution of the marine installation of the 2B was also four times better than the first.

The yield also doubled from 13 to 26, and the number of observations per day also increased from eight to ten.

Also included was the fine dust observation environment payload, which was not included in Issue 1.

The Cheonlian 2B is the first geostationary satellite to be loaded with environmental payloads.

The 'Korean satellite', which designed, assembled and tested the main body using domestic technology, is also a feature of Cheonian 2A and 2B.

Cheon Lian 1 was co-developed with France.

There are seven countries with geostationary satellite technology: the United States, the European Union, Japan, India, China, Russia, and Israel.

The Ministry of Science and ICT, Ministry of Environment, Ministry of Maritime Affairs and Fisheries, etc. have supported the production of two satellites since 2011 to develop geostationary satellite technology.

This time, Korea has climbed the Cheonrian 2A and 2B side-by-side to join the ranks of the country that possesses geostationary satellite technology.

(Photo: Cheon Lian 2B Joint Report, Yonhap News)