Earth is under surveillance, thanks to Chinese students
Students graduating from China’s Changchun University of Science and Technology in 2021 landed upon a one-of-a-kind idea. They wanted their graduation photograph to be captured from space, i.e., almost at a height of 650 kilometres right above them. For the picture, the students stood in a line on their college field holding red- and yellow-coloured cards over their heads that read their college’s initials in English, i.e., CUST IT.
How did a college photograph session turn into earth-wise surveillance?
Two Chinese satellites, Jilin-1 Spectrum 01 and Jilin-1 Video 07, travelled over the Changchun university grounds and took the graduation farewell photograph of the batch of 2021. The organization that operates these satellites, called Chang Guang Satellites Technology Co (CGSTC), have released reports that after this exclusive photograph session of CUST students, many other Chinese Universities in the region have placed their request for the same.
In response, CGSTC has said that their satellites are more than ready to offer this service, not only to Chinese students, but students graduating from any university from any part of the world, be it during daytime or night. For this, CGSTC has kept aside 138 satellites ready that are part of China’s maiden commercial constellation in the sky. According to CGSTC, these satellites will travel across earth at a low orbit leading to world’s highest resolution from space and time alike.
How will this earth-wise surveillance actually take place?
The CGSTC is a branch of Chinese government, partially owned by the department of Changchun Institute of Optics, Fine Mechanics and Physics affiliated to the Chinese Academy of Sciences. CGSTC aims to assemble a constellation of optical earth observation satellites by 2030.
The Jilin-1 satellite, named after the region in which CGSTC is located, will have high-performance optical satellites, about 138 in number. These remote-sensed satellites will cover the surface of the entire planet, every 10 minutes. These satellites are 99% accurate and will therefore give proper glimpse and data from every inch of the earth. These satellites were previously used for forestry and agricultural purposes, monitoring of the environment, geographical mapping, land planning, building of a smart city, etc.
History of these satellites
In 2015, China had launched 4 of these Jilin-1 satellites together. Since then, they have had 12 successful attempts and 3 failed ones.
In August 2020, Pakistan had apparently bought these real-time satellite data (from Jilin-1) from China to analyze the exact position of Indian Army camps along the LoC (Line of Control) in Jammu & Kashmir.
In the following month, China itself launched these satellites at Yellow Sea from a Long March-11 rocket, their first ever attempt of a satellite on sea.
By September 2021, China had put up 31 of Jilin-1 satellites to cover the entire earth’s area, the very recent one being on 27th September.
China is hoping to launch 29 more satellites by the end of this year, making it to a total of 60 satellites put up there to survey the earth in its entirety in a gap of every 10 minutes.
Features of these satellites
The Jilin-1 satellites are lightweight (less than 40kgs each), with an integrated electronic system and has a high-resolution yet cost-effective camera installed in them. In December 2020, the Company had raised 2.46 billion Yuan for the funding, research and development of these satellites, the amount being highest ever by any Chinese Space Technology organization.