Improvements on global meteorological observations from the current Fengyun 3 satellites and beyond

Abstract

The Fengyun 3 (FY-3) series is the second generation of Chinese sun-synchronous meteorological satellites.The first two, FY-3A and FY-3B, were launched successfully on 27 May 2008 and 5 November 2010, respectively.FY-3A and FY-3B share the same design, equipped with 11 payloads to observe the Earth system, but FY-3A is on a monitoring-orbit and FY-3B is on an afternoon-orbit.As a satellite constellation, FY-3A and FY-3B comprehensively improved meteorological observations in spectral wavelength, spatial coverage, and temporal frequency.This paper summarizes the improvements of the FY-3A and FY-3B satellites.New features, including optical imaging capacity from kilometer to hundred-meter resolution, passive microwave imaging, atmospheric temperature and moisture sounding, atmospheric chemistry remote sensing, and Earth radiation budget measurement, are presented with demonstrations of their use.Instruments scheduled for the FY-3C and beyond are introduced as well.