China launches multi-purpose satellite

BEIJING: China today successfully launched a multi-purpose satellite for monitoring, planning and management of land, forestry and agriculture.

The CBERS-4 satellite has been developed jointly with Brazil. It was launched from Taiyuan base using a Long March-4B rocket.

In November 2002, the governments of China and Brazil decided to expand the initial agreement by including another two satellites - CBERS-3, lost in a launch mishap in December 2013, and CBERS-4 - as the second generation of the Sino-Brazilian cooperation effort.

It was the 200th flight for the Long March rocket family, state-run Xinhua News Agency reported.

The rocket blasted off at 11:26 a m (local time) and lifted the earth resource satellite into its scheduled orbit, it said.

CBERS-4 is one of the satellites of the Chinese-Brazilian Earth Resource Satellite (CBERS) programme which began in 1988.

Such satellites are used in monitoring, planning and management of land, forestry, water conservation, environmental protection and agriculture, it said.