Progress and Achievements of Fengyun Meteorological Satellite Program since 2022

Fengyun meteorological satellites have undergone a series of significant developments over the past 50 years.Two generations,four types,and 21 Fengyun satellites have been developed and launched,with 9 currently operational in orbit.The data obtained from Fengyun satellites is employed in a multitude of applications,including weather forecasting,meteorological disaster prevention and reduction,climate change,global environmental monitoring,and space weather.These data products and services are made available to the global community,resulting in tangible social and economic benefits.In 2023,two Fengyun meteorological satellites were successfully launched.This report presents an overview of the two recently launched Fengyun satellites and currently in orbit Fengyun satellites,including an evaluation of their remote sensing instruments since 2022.Additionally,it addresses the subject of Fengyun satellite data archiving,data services,application services,international cooperation,and supporting activities.Furthermore,the development prospects have been outlined.

FY-3E:The First Operational Meteorological Satellite Mission in an Early Morning Orbit

Fengyun-3 E(FY-3E),the world’s first early-morning-orbit meteorological satellite for civil use,was launched successfully at the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center on 5 July 2021.The FY-3E satellite will fill the vacancy of the global early-morning-orbit satellite observation,working together with the FY-3C and FY-3D satellites to achieve the data coverage of early morning,morning,and afternoon orbits.The combination of these three satellites will provide global data coverage for numerical weather prediction(NWP)at 6-hour intervals,effectively improving the accuracy and time efficiency of global NWP,which is of great significance to perfect the global earth observing system.In this article,the background and meteorological requirements for the early-morning-orbit satellite are reviewed,and the specifications of the FY-3E satellite,as well as the characteristics of the onboard instrumentation for earth observations,are also introduced.In addition,the ground segment and the retrieved geophysical products are also presented.It is believed that the NWP communities will significantly benefit from an optimal temporal distribution of observations provided by the early morning,mid-morning,and afternoon satellite missions.Further benefits are expected in numerous applications such as the monitoring of severe weather/climate events,the development of improved sampling designs of the diurnal cycle for accurate climate data records,more efficient monitoring of air quality by thermal infrared remote sensing,and the quasicontinuous monitoring of the sun for space weather and climate.

Fengyun Meteorological Satellite Products for Earth System Science Applications

Following the progress of satellite data assimilation in the 1990s, the combination of meteorological satellites and numerical models has changed the way scientists understand the earth. With the evolution of numerical weather prediction models and earth system models, meteorological satellites will play a more important role in earth sciences in the future. As part of the space-based infrastructure, the Fengyun (FY) meteorological satellites have contributed to earth science sustainability studies through an open data policy and stable data quality since the first launch of the FY-1A satellite in 1988. The capability of earth system monitoring was greatly enhanced after the second-generation polar orbiting FY-3 satellites and geostationary orbiting FY-4 satellites were developed. Meanwhile, the quality of the products generated from the FY-3 and FY-4 satellites is comparable to the well-known MODIS products. FY satellite data has been utilized broadly in weather forecasting, climate and climate change investigations, environmental disaster monitoring, etc. This article reviews the instruments mounted on the FY satellites. Sensor-dependent level 1 products (radiance data) and inversion algorithm-dependent level 2 products (geophysical parameters) are introduced. As an example, some typical geophysical parameters, such as wildfires, lightning, vegetation indices, aerosol products, soil moisture, and precipitation estimation have been demonstrated and validated by in-situ observations and other well-known satellite products. To help users access the FY products, a set of data sharing systems has been developed and operated. The newly developed data sharing system based on cloud technology has been illustrated to improve the efficiency of data delivery.

A new type of Shipboard Meteorological Satellite Receiving-processing System

The Shipboard Meteorological Satellite Receiving-processing System (SMSRPS) is specially developed for the navigation meteorological safeguard of the Antarctic exploration ship over the sea ice area of the forth Ocean. This system can suit to the climate environment of very high temperature high moisture and very low temperature - supersaturation; it has a self-protection ability to against the hurricane - force wind over force 12 and the strong vibration during icebreaking, as well as strong magnetic disturbance. It has two sets of receiving-imagery processing systems for polar orbit low-resolution and quasi-stationary high-solution satellites. The key creation Points of this system are as follows: 1. the active gyro-control stabilization platform and a mixed mounting system of three rotating a - B and x -- y axes are used. It solved the tracing difficulties both in the low elevation angle and very high elevation angle of polar-orbit satellite, even in the status of ship moving with continuously changing its poition, direction and ship roll and pitch. 2. Imagery processing subsystem. The newest BORLAND-- DELPHI language and PASCAL language pro gramming software are used under WINDOWS 95 environment. It has a dynamic positioning nested-grid system and electric mapping grid data system. It can show the latitude-longitude of any point on the map, and marks any object such as ship, station or island, and draws the route. It can monitor cloud and temperature, forest fire, anomalous change of ocean and land. It can output satellite cloud maps of 24 bit with very high clarity. This system is very advanced in technique for the whole structure with the features of small volume, light weight and very low cost. It suits to very bad climate and ocean environment. Its imagery process ing system has complete functions with high resolution and being very easy to operate. It is not only suit to land use, but also and specially to all kinds of ship over the sea. It can be extended to domestic and international use. This system played a very important role in the 14th Chinese Antarctic Exploration Navigation, and was introduced a broad attention paid by Chinese newspapers and TV Stations.

Update on Fengyun Meteorological Satellite Program and Development

China began to develop its meteorological satellite program since 1969.With 50-years’growing,there are 17 Fengyun(FY)meteorological satellites launched successfully.At present,seven of them are in orbit to provide the operational service,including three polar orbiting meteorological satellites and four geostationary meteorological satellites.Since last COSPAR report,no new Fengyun satellite has been launched.The information of the on-orbit FY-2 series,FY-3 series,and FY-4 series has been updated.FY-3D and FY-2H satellites accomplished the commission test and transitioned into operation in 2018.FY-2E satellite completed its service to decommission in 2019.The web-based users and Direct Broadcasting(DB)users keep growing worldwide to require the Fengyun satellite data and products.A new Mobile Application Service has been launched to Fengyun users based on the cloud technology in 2018.In this report,the international and regional co-operations to facilitate the Fengyun user community have been addressed especially.To strengthen the data service in the Belt and Road countries,the Emergency Support Mechanism of Fengyun satellite(FY_ESM)has been established since 2018.Meanwhile,a Recalibrating 30-years’archived Fengyun satellite data project has been founded since 2018.This project targets to generate the Fundamental Climate Data Record(FCDR)as a space agency response to the Global Climate Observation System(GCOS).At last,the future Fengyun program up to 2025 has been introduced as well.

Progress of Fengyun Meteorological Satellites Since 2020

China’s efforts to develop Fengyun meteorological satellites have made major strides over the past 50 years,with the polar and geostationary meteorological satellite series achieving continuously stable operation to persistently provide data and product services globally.By the end of 2021,19 Chinese self-developed Fengyun meteorological satellites have been launched successfully.Seven of them are in operation at present,the data and products are widely applied to weather analysis,numerical weather forecasting and climate prediction,as well as environment and disaster monitoring.Since the last COSPAR report,FY-4B,the first new-generation operational geostationary satellite,and FY-3E,the first early-morning orbit satellite in China’s polar-orbiting meteorological satellite family have been launched in 2021.The characteristics of the two latest satellites and the instruments onboard are addressed in this report.The status of current Fengyun Satellites,product and data service and international cooperation and supporting activities has been introduced as well.

Meteorological satellite stakeholder relationship network based on social network analysis

The meteorological satellite service range is extensive,and science and technology and related industries have become beneficiaries of it.The complex meteorological satellite stakeholder relationship warrants quantitative evaluation.This study investigates the meteorological satellite stakeholder relationship network to provide a new research perspective for meteorological satellites in the field of management.For literature analysis,16 meteorological satellite stakeholders are identified through keyword screening,classified,and coded.A meteorological satellite stakeholder relationship network model is then constructed through social network analysis(SNA).Ego,local,and overall networks are analyzed from three perspectives to measure the network principle and to form a relationship network coordination degree evaluation system.The improved analytic hierarchy process(AHP)-fuzzy comprehensive evaluation method is then used to determine index weights and evaluate the relationship network coordination process design comprehensively.In empirical analysis,data for the meteorological satellite Fengyun-4 are obtained through questionnaire survey and literature analysis.Ucinet6 is used to generate relationship networks and analyze various stakeholder roles and status,stakeholder relationship network coordination degree,and evaluation results.The results demonstrate that the competent meteorological satellite department,the meteorological administration,the National Meteorological Centre,and the government are in the center of the Fengyun-4 stakeholder relationship network,with coordination degree in an“average”state.Thus,establishing a stakeholder coordination mechanism may strengthen connection and promote the development of meteorological undertakings.

RESEARCH ON AUTOMATIC FOG IDENTIFICATION TECHNOLOGY BY METEOROLOGICAL SATELLITE REMOTE SENSING

There is an urgent need for the development of a method that can undertake rapid, effective, and accurate monitoring and identification of fog by satellite remote sensing, since heavy fog can cause enormous disasters to China’s national economy and people's lives and property in the urban and coastal areas. In this paper, the correlative relationship between the reflectivity of land surface and clouds in different time phases is found, based on the analysis of the radiative and satellite-based spectral characteristics of fog. Through calculation and analyses of the relative variability of the reflectivity in the images, the threshold to identify quasi-fog areas is generated automatically. Furthermore, using the technique of quick image run-length encoding, and in combination with such practical methods as analyzing texture and shape fractures, smoothness, and template characteristics, the automatic identification of fog and fog-cloud separation using meteorological satellite remote sensing images are studied, with good results in application.

FY-2F Meteorological Satellite and Its Applications

China is one of the countries in the world claiming the most occurrences of severe natural disasters. The natural disasters occurring in this country, diversify in type, wide in geographic distribution, high frequency of occurrence, and bring heavy losses in terms of people's lives and properties.

FY-4 Meteorological Satellite

FY-4 is the second generation of Chinese geostationary satellite for quantitative remote sensing meteorological application. The detection efficiency, spectral bands, spatial and time resolution have been greatly improved with respect to those of first generation, as well as the radiometric calibration and sensitivity. The combination of multichannel detection and vertical sounding was first realized on FY-4, because both the Advanced Geostationary Radiation Imager(AGRI) and Geostationary Interferometric Infrared Sounder(GIIRS) are on the same spacecraft. The main performance of the payloads including AGRI, GIIRS and Lightning Mapping Imager, and the spacecraft bus are presented, the performance being equivalent to the level of the third generation meteorological satellites in Europe and USA. The acquiring methods of remote sensing data including multichannel and high precision quantitative observing, imaging collection of the ground and cloud, vertical observation of atmospheric temperature and moisture, lightning imaging observation and space environment detection are shown. Several innovative technologies including high accuracy rotation angle detection and scanning control, high precision calibration, micro vibration suppression, unified reference of platform and payload and on-orbit measurement, real-time image navigation and registration on-orbit were applied in FY-4.

FY-2F Meteorological Satellite Successfully Launched

At 08:56 on January 13,a LM-3A launch vehicle launched into space FY-2F,the fourth operational geostationary meteorological satellite independently developed by China,from the Xichang Satellite Launch Center.24 minutes after the lift-off,data received from the Xi'an Satellite TT&C Center and the

Latest Progress of the Chinese Meteorological Satellite Program and Core Data Processing Technologies

In this paper,the latest progress,major achievements and future plans of Chinese meteorological satellites and the core data processing techniques are discussed.First,the latest three FengYun(FY)meteorological satellites(FY-2H,FY-3D,and FY-4A)and their primary objectives are introduced Second,the core image navigation techniques and accuracies of the FY meteorological satellites are elaborated,including the latest geostationary(FY-2/4)and polar-orbit(FY-3)satellites.Third,the radiometric calibration techniques and accuracies of reflective solar bands,thermal infrared bands,and passive microwave bands for FY meteorological satellites are discussed.It also illustrates the latest progress of real-time calibration with the onboard calibration system and validation with different methods,including the vicarious China radiance calibration site calibration,pseudo invariant calibration site calibration,deep convective clouds calibration,and lunar calibration.Fourth,recent progress of meteorological satellite data assimilation applications and quantitative science produce are summarized at length.The main progress is in meteorological satellite data assimilation by using microwave and hyper-spectral infrared sensors in global and regional numerical weather prediction models.Lastly,the latest progress in radiative transfer,absorption and scattering calculations for satellite remote sensing is summarized,and some important research using a new radiative transfer model are illustrated.

Prospects for China's New Generation Polar Orbit Meteorological Satellite Application

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Preface to the Special Issue on Fengyun Meteorological Satellites: Data, Application and Assessment

Humans have a more than sixty-year history of observing Earth from space beginning after the launch of the first meteor-ological satellite,Television Infrared Observation Satellite(TIROS),in 1960.Satellite observations have transformed the way scientists observe and study Earth(Ackerman et al.,2019).With the progress of satellite data assimilation in the 1990s,modern Numerical Weather Prediction(NWP)became deeply tied to global satellite observations(Eyre et al.,1993).Scient-ists expect that meteorological satellites will play a more important role in future Earth Science studies.

GEOSTIONARY METEOROLOGICAL SATELLITE FY-2 OF CHINA

The first FY-2 geostationary metebrological satellite was lauched June 10, 1997flom Xichang satellite launching center by Long March-3 launching vehicle.This paper is to provide users with a brief description of the satellite system including primary objective, major payload, satellite specifications and data broadcasting system.

APPLICATION OF VEGETATION INDEX OF METEOROLOGICAL SATELLITE IN DROUGHT ANALYSIS OF NINGXIA

There are five channels in NOAA-N series meteorological satellites. The channel No.1 is exactly located in the absorbtion band of vegetation, the channel No. 2 in the strong re-flection one. Therefore the two channels are suitable for monitoring and analysing vegeta-tion. To make certain mathematical value combination of two channels and specify its val-

Algorithm for the Sea Surface Wind Imaging Products of Fengyun-3C Meteorological Satellite MWRI

This paper analyzes the sea surface backward thermal radiation data in the China Sea observed by the mmwave channel of FY3 MWRI, explains the reason for which the analysis method combined with multiple mmwave channels is conducive to wind inversion, uses the complex model of the two-scale randomly rough surface with foam scattering layer to calculate the backward heat emission, analyzes the different response characteristics of the thermal radiation characteristics of each channel with the change of the sea surface wind speed, and establishes the wind speed inversion model applying to the microwave radiometer, achieving better results than in previous studies. The sea surface medium-low wind speed precision standard deviation of new model reaches 1.2 m/s (0 - 15 m/s);the inversion strong wind data are consistent with the island fixed buoys data, and the global sea surface wind speed image schematic diagram is given.

Space Environment Deteation of Chinese Meteorological Satellites

This paper presents the space environment detection of Chinese geosynchronous and sun-synchronous meteorological satellites and gives a short perspective of space environment observations on board meteorological satellites.

The Polar Orbit Meteorological Satellite in China

Meteorological satellite is one kind of applied satellite that has tremendous benefit to economic and social. The development of polar meteorological satellite in China has experienced the processes from experiment to application. This paper introduces briefly the development and performance of FY-1 polar meteorological satellite; the successes of space borne 10 channels scanning radiometer and long life, high reliable polar satellite platform are described. Moreover, the general information of the new generation polar FY-3 meteorological satellite is presented. The technology specialty of the satellite is summarized.

Developing the Science Product Algorithm Testbed for Chinese Next-Generation Geostationary Meteorological Satellites：Fengyun-4 Series

Fengyun-4A（FY-4A）, the first of the Chinese next-generation geostationary meteorological satellites, launched in2016, offers several advances over the FY-2： more spectral bands, faster imaging, and infrared hyperspectral measurements. To support the major objective of developing the prototypes of FY-4 science algorithms, two science product algorithm testbeds for imagers and sounders have been developed by the scientists in the FY-4 Algorithm Working Group（AWG）. Both testbeds, written in FORTRAN and C programming languages for Linux or UNIX systems, have been tested successfully by using Intel/g compilers. Some important FY-4 science products, including cloud mask, cloud properties, and temperature profiles, have been retrieved successfully through using a proxy imager, Himawari-8/Advanced Himawari Imager（AHI）, and sounder data, obtained from the Atmospheric Infra Red Sounder, thus demonstrating their robustness. In addition, in early 2016, the FY-4 AWG was developed based on the imager testbed—a near real-time processing system for Himawari-8/AHI data for use by Chinese weather forecasters.Consequently, robust and flexible science product algorithm testbeds have provided essential and productive tools for popularizing FY-4 data and developing substantial improvements in FY-4 products.