Building on their continuing success with CBERS-2, Brazil and China are now planning additional cooperation for Remote Sensing programs
Building on their continuing success with CBERS-2, Brazil and China are now planning additional cooperation for Remote Sensing programs |
During his official visit to Brazil last week, Chinese Foreign Minister Tang Jiaxuan and his Brazilian counterpart Luiz Felipe Lampreia signed the accord "Satellite Sino-Brazilian Project of Land Resources". Under the agreement the countries will equally share the cost of developing two second-generation China-Brazil Earth Remote Sensing satellites CBERS-3 and -4, and expand bilateral cooperation in space technology.
The two countries will also explore the feasibility of engaging in the joint development of a geostationary meteorological satellite and a telecommunications satellite, both of which are based on the CBERS model.
When Brazilian President Fernando Henrique Cardoso visited China in December 1995, a previous agreement signed between the two countries laid the groundwork for this new accord.
In the existing cooperative program China and Brazil have spent US $300 million to develop and launch the first two CBERS satellites, with China paying for 70% of the cost.
Last October the first satellite of the series, also called Ziyuan-1 (ZY-1) in Chinese ("Ziyuan" means resource), was successfully launched from the Taiyuan Satellite Launch Center (TSLC) in the northern Shanxi Province aboard a Changzheng-4B rocket.
CBERS-2 is under construction at the Brazilian National Institute for Space Research (INPE), which is located in the southeastern city of Sao Jose dos Campos near Sao Paulo. China has sent a team of specialists to assist their counterparts in the current work. The target timeline for launch at TSLC is October 2001.
CBERS-2 will be similar to its predecessor but incorporated with improvement to increase its capability and reliability.
The two second-generation CBERS satellites will include a significant improvement in the imaging resolution of the High Resolution CCD Camera. The camera that is in operation on CBERS-1 has a resolution of 20 meters. The next generation CCD camera will have a higher resolution of 5 meters.
At the signing ceremony of the new accord in Brasilia, both parties agreed that such a bilateral cooperation would also be important in promoting the social, economic and cultural development of both countries.
Tang said, "In the 26 years since China and Brazil established diplomatic relations, close bilateral cooperation has fully developed. The successful launch of the first jointly developed earth resource satellite last year had laid a good foundation to expand Sino-Brazilian cooperation in the high tech area."
The Brazilian Minister of Science and Technology Ronaldo Sardenberg added: "Future bilateral cooperation in technology may expand to areas such as biology, information, human genetic engineering and agriculture."
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