Published : 07/09/2025
On September 7, 1988, China's first domestically developed polar-orbiting meteorological satellite, Fengyun-1A (風雲一號A星), was successfully launched from Taiyuan, Shanxi Province, and accurately entered a sun-synchronous orbit.
This marked the end of China's complete reliance on foreign meteorological satellite data, as the nation now possessed its own satellite system.
This milestone culminated nearly two decades of dedicated effort by Chinese meteorological and aerospace professionals, who began developing ground application systems early on.
Since the 1970s, China had possessed the capability to receive cloud imagery from foreign satellites. However, this capability was limited to image reception without quantitative processing, preventing the extraction of raw data or the calculation of various meteorological parameters, thus failing to fully realise its utility.
In 1978, following the 3rd Plenary Session of the 11th Central Committee, China's meteorological satellite programme gained momentum from the Reform and Opening-up. Meteorological departments progressively introduced satellite data processing software.
From the late 1970s to the early 1980s, through the dedicated efforts of the National Satellite Meteorological Center team, they mastered the skills of quantitative satellite data processing.
In 1985, benefiting from the United Nations Development Programme's assistance project for developing countries on NOAA satellite data application, operational staff at the National Satellite Meteorological Center independently developed a comprehensive satellite data processing system.
This laid a solid foundation for the research and development of the Fengyun-1 ground system. Six months prior to the Fengyun-1 launch, the ground data reception and processing system—comprising 14 software packages and 400,000 lines of code—was formally completed, achieving international advanced standards at the time.
China also accelerated its hardware development. Starting in 1974, the National Satellite Meteorological Center initiated feasibility studies for satellite data reception and processing systems.
After two years of site selection and eight years of construction, meteorological satellite ground stations rose in Beijing, Guangzhou, and Urumqi. On December 26, 1987, the Fengyun-1 meteorological satellite data reception and processing system passed national acceptance.
On June 25, 1988, the Fengyun-1A satellite passed factory acceptance testing at the Shanghai Academy of Spaceflight Technology and was transported to the launch site.
On September 7, the satellite launched successfully. Starting from its first orbit, the ground system successfully received and processed the data transmitted by the satellite.
On the same day, Fengyun-1A transmitted back the first visible-light cloud image, featuring clear images, distinct textures, and well-defined layers.
Today, China has developed into one of the few countries in the world to simultaneously operate both low-Earth orbit and geostationary meteorological satellites.