November 8, 2016 - China Launches Earth Observation Satellite

If you're searching for a Chinese Earth observation satellite launched on November 8, 2016, you've got the date wrong — and it's a common mix-up. China actually launched Gaofen-3 on August 10, 2016, from the Taiyuan Satellite Launch Center. It's a C-band synthetic aperture radar satellite capable of all-weather, day-and-night imaging at resolutions up to one meter. The November date appears in some program overviews but doesn't reflect the actual launch. There's much more to this mission than the date.

Key Takeaways

• China launched the Gaofen-3 Earth observation satellite on November 8, 2016, as part of its China High-resolution Earth Observation System (CHEOS).
• Gaofen-3 carries a multi-polarized C-band synthetic aperture radar (SAR), enabling all-weather, day-and-night imaging capabilities.
• The satellite operates in a sun-synchronous orbit at approximately 755 km altitude with a 98.41° inclination.
• Gaofen-3 supports 12 imaging modes, including a 1-meter spotlight mode and a wide 500-km swath capability.
• The satellite serves dual civilian and military purposes, including maritime surveillance, disaster response, flood mapping, and resource monitoring.

What China Actually Launched on August 10, 2016

On August 10, 2016, China launched Gaofen-10 (01), a synthetic aperture radar Earth observation satellite, atop a Long March 4C rocket from the Taiyuan Satellite Launch Center at 10:28 a.m. Beijing Time. The two-stage rocket included a Yuanzheng upper stage, which successfully delivered the satellite into a sun-synchronous orbit at 705 km altitude.

Weighing approximately 2,500 kg, Gaofen 10 serves both civilian and military purposes. You'd find its capabilities impressive — it delivers radar resolution up to 1 meter and supports multiple imaging modes, including spotlight and stripmap.

The satellite's mission covers electromagnetic reconnaissance, signals intelligence, ocean surveillance, ship tracking, and 3D terrain mapping. It integrates into China's CHEOS network and carries a projected operational lifespan of at least five years. China has also developed a separate constellation of military surveillance satellites, with Yaogan-30 satellites launching in batches of three since 2017.

China has continued expanding its space program with missions such as Shijian-21, launched in October 2021 aboard a Long March 3B rocket from the Xichang Satellite Launch Center, aimed at verifying space debris mitigation technology.

What Is the CHEOS Program and Where Does Gaofen-3 Fit?

China's High-Resolution Earth Observation System (CHEOS) traces its roots to a 2006 proposal, gaining official approval in 2010 as one of sixteen National Science and Technology Major Projects. This CHEOS overview reveals an ambitious system combining satellites, stratospheric airships, aircraft, and ground systems to achieve all-weather, all-time global observation by 2020. The program is designed to support critical sectors such as modern agriculture, disaster prevention, resource monitoring, and strategic decision-making across various fields.

Seven civilian Gaofen satellites form the program's space-based backbone, each filling a distinct role. Gaofen-3 integration addresses a critical gap that optical satellites can't fill — all-weather microwave imaging. While optical satellites depend on clear skies and daylight, GF-3's synthetic aperture radar operates continuously, day or night, through cloud cover. You can think of it as CHEOS's weather-proof eye, essential for disaster response, maritime surveillance, and resource monitoring.

Data collected through CHEOS is shared through bilateral and multilateral agreements, including cooperation frameworks between CNSA and Roscosmos established in 2003, and later expanded through BRICS agency partnerships in August 2021.

Which Rocket and Launch Facility Put Gaofen-3 Into Orbit?

Placing Gaofen-3's all-weather radar capability into orbit required the right hardware and launch site.

China selected the Long March 4C launchpad at Taiyuan operations center for this mission. You'll recognize this three-stage medium-lift rocket as a reliable workhorse capable of delivering 1,300 kg to sun-synchronous orbit.

Here's what made this launch work:

1. Launch vehicle: Long March 4C, derived from the proven Long March 4B design
2. Launch facility: Taiyuan Satellite Launch Center, Launch Complex 9
3. Launch timing: August 9, 2016, at 22:55 UTC
4. Orbital insertion: 755 km altitude at 98.41-degree inclination

Taiyuan's strategic positioning supports polar and sun-synchronous missions, making it the ideal facility for deploying China's earth observation constellation. The Gaofen-3 mission was carried to orbit by China Long March 4C rocket, the same vehicle designated for this launch in official mission records. Gaofen-3 was built on the CS-L3000B bus, a satellite platform that provided the structural and power foundation for its multi-polarized C-band SAR instrument. Just as Edison's carbon microphone required testing over 2,000 substances before identifying the ideal material for reliable signal transmission, satellite missions depend on rigorous component selection to ensure mission success.

Why China Chose C-Band Radar for This Mission

When selecting a radar frequency for Gaofen-3, China's engineers chose C-band because it hits the sweet spot between resolution and penetration. You'll find its 4–8 GHz range cuts through clouds, vegetation, and light snow while delivering sharper imagery than L-band systems can offer. Unlike X-band, it handles rain without significant signal loss, making it ideal for disaster response and ocean surveillance.

C-band also supports radar diplomacy by aligning Gaofen-3 with global SAR standards, enabling international data interoperability. China reinforces signal sovereignty by operating its own proven C-band infrastructure rather than depending on foreign systems. With 12 imaging modes spanning 1-meter spotlight to 500-kilometer wide swath, the frequency gives China flexible, all-weather, day-night coverage that sustains the satellite's 8-year civil and maritime mission. Just as Anik A1's twelve transponders demonstrated that a single orbital platform could deliver continent-wide communications across vast and remote territories, Gaofen-3's C-band system similarly proves that one satellite can serve an entire nation's surveillance and monitoring needs. Gaofen-3 also extends its utility to water resource management, disaster risk warning, and weather forecasting through its multipolarization SAR capabilities. The satellite was launched from Taiyuan space center in northern China aboard a Long March 4C three-stage rocket.

How Gaofen-3's SAR Technology Sees Through Clouds and Darkness

Gaofen-3 pierces through clouds, darkness, and atmospheric haze by transmitting its own microwave pulses and capturing the backscatter that bounces off Earth's surface.

Unlike optical satellites, it doesn't need sunlight, making cloud penetration and night imaging possible 24/7.

Here's what enables this capability:

1. Active sensor — Gaofen-3 generates its own radio waves, eliminating dependence on solar illumination.
2. Microwave frequency — C-band signals cut through clouds, dust, smog, and volcanic ash effortlessly.
3. All-weather operation — It bypasses the 55% land and 70% ocean cloud cover that cripples optical satellites.
4. Round-the-clock monitoring — You get continuous surface change detection, even during disasters, darkness, or severe weather.

This makes Gaofen-3 a powerful persistent surveillance tool for any condition. The backscattered signals it receives also encode amplitude and phase data, enabling richer surface analysis beyond simple imaging. The sensor technologies enabling such persistent observation share a broader drive toward practical, real-world utility seen across scientific fields, including superconductivity research where liquid-nitrogen cooling costs dropped dramatically after the 1987 YBCO breakthrough made applications far more affordable. In disaster scenarios such as flooding, this 24/7 surface observation capability proves critical, as initial flood extent maps can be produced within hours even under the heaviest cloud cover.

What Multipolarized Radar Can See That Single-Mode Radar Misses

While single-mode radar gives you one polarization channel and a limited view of what's below, Gaofen-3's multipolarized SAR captures backscatter across horizontal and vertical orientations simultaneously, letting you distinguish target shapes, surface textures, and material properties that a single-pol system would flatten into noise.

Polarimetric imaging lets you separate hail from rain, detect subsurface geological layers under 10 meters deep, and identify non-spherical targets through differential phase shifts. Before satellite-based systems matured, ground-based navigation and observation relied on fragmented, limited-coverage technologies like LORAN and Decca that suffered from the same fundamental problem: a single-mode approach constraining what operators could reliably detect or measure across global coverage gaps.

You're also getting better clutter suppression — dual-pol thresholds on correlation coefficients and differential reflectivity strip out birds, ground returns, and interference that single-mode radar misidentifies as meaningful data.

The result is cleaner, richer scene interpretation: you see dielectric contrasts, orientation diversity, and mixed precipitation types that monopolar systems simply can't resolve. Hailstones tumble unpredictably and carry a lower dielectric constant than water, driving differential reflectivity values below 1 in linear terms and exposing what single-pol returns would otherwise mask as undifferentiated high-reflectivity echo. This capability mirrors the broader shift in radar design, where multi-mode operation has replaced application-specific single-function systems across ground, air, and water surveillance roles.

Agriculture, Urban Planning, and Flood Mapping With Gaofen-3

Across agriculture, urban planning, and flood response, Gaofen-3's C-SAR system gives you actionable ground truth where optical sensors fail. Its 12 imaging modes and quad-polarimetric capability serve precision farming, urban heat mapping, and disaster assessment simultaneously.

Here's what you're working with:

1. Agriculture – Monitor soil moisture, irrigation coverage, and crop yield estimates through all-weather observations
2. Precision Farming – Track vegetation health and land use changes with high-resolution C-SAR data
3. Urban Heat Mapping – Assess topography, infrastructure expansion, and land surface changes across growing cities
4. Flood Mapping – Delineate flood extents in near-real-time using cloud-penetrating radar and quad-polarized water detection

The Ministry of Water Resources relies on Gaofen-3 for lakes, rivers, wetlands, and flood assessment beyond immediate disaster response. Operating in a sun-synchronous orbit at approximately 755 km altitude with a 99-minute orbital period, the satellite ensures consistent, repeatable observation geometry critical for comparing agricultural and hydrological data across seasons. Early satellite programs demonstrated that low-orbit configurations carry heightened vulnerability to environmental hazards, a lesson that informed how modern Earth observation satellites like Gaofen-3 approach orbital design and system resilience.

Gaofen-3 imagery also supports mining exploration applications, with cost calculations available for specific areas of interest by submitting a technical description of your proposal to innoter@innoter.com.

How Gaofen-3 Supports Disaster Response Operations

When disaster strikes, you need satellite data that cuts through cloud cover, darkness, and extreme weather—and that's exactly what Gaofen-3's C-SAR system delivers. Its near-real-time data transmission lets emergency teams act fast, mapping flood inundation zones to support rapid evacuation and resource deployment.

During China's major disaster events—Jiuzhaigou's earthquake, southern flooding, and Typhoon Tiange—Gaofen-3 delivered first-response imagery that guided rescue operations and damage assessments. Its differential interferometry detects centimeter-level ground deformation, identifying secondary hazards before they escalate. Working alongside HY-2 and GF-4 satellites, Gaofen-3 strengthens typhoon forecasting, landslide monitoring, and flood control facility evaluation. With the addition of Gaofen-3 03 to the constellation, same location revisit was reduced to just five hours, enabling significantly faster disaster monitoring response cycles.

As part of the China High-resolution Earth Observation System, Gaofen-3 operates within a broader national framework designed to ensure continuous, coordinated satellite coverage across disaster-prone regions. The economic case for expanding such satellite constellations has grown stronger as advances in reusable rocket technology have driven launch costs down to approximately $2,500 per kilogram to orbit, making it more affordable to deploy and replenish Earth observation assets.

How Gaofen-3 Completes China's Earth Observation Constellation

Gaofen-3's disaster response capabilities don't operate in isolation—they're amplified by its role within China's broader Earth observation network. Alongside Gaofen-3 02 and 03, you get a three-satellite system achieving remarkable revisit optimization, cutting response time from 3.5 days down to just 5 hours per location.

Here's what this constellation coverage delivers:

1. All-weather SAR imaging day and night across global regions
2. Five high-resolution images daily per monitored area
3. Optical-SAR fusion pairing with Gaofen-1 and Gaofen-6 for richer data
4. Environmental monitoring through integration with hyperspectral Gaofen-5

Together, these satellites form CHEOS—China's civilian high-definition Earth observation system—giving you comprehensive, continuous coverage for mapping, climate monitoring, and emergency management applications. The Gaofen project, which began in 2010, was specifically designed to reduce China's dependence on foreign remote sensing satellite data. Much like NASA's Mars Pathfinder mission demonstrated that cost savings and innovation could achieve high-value scientific returns without cutting scope, China's Gaofen program shows that domestically developed systems can deliver world-class Earth observation capabilities at scale.

What Scientists and Governments Actually Do With Gaofen-3 Data

From flood zones to open ocean, Gaofen-3 data drives real decisions across government agencies, research institutions, and emergency response teams.

When South China floods struck in 2020, the satellite delivered 248 effective data returns, replacing 80% of previously imported satellite data—a clear policy implication for China's push toward data sovereignty.

You'll see its reach across 31 regions and 20 industries.

The State Oceanic Administration monitors sea resources, the Ministry of Water Resources tracks environmental conditions, and the China Meteorological Administration uses it for weather forecasting.

Scientists monitor algal blooms in Yunnan Province and crop distribution nationwide. The satellite's SAR package is capable of operating continuously for up to an hour, enabling extended imaging sessions that support sustained scientific data collection over large areas.

Through CHEOS, Gaofen-3 also supports international collaboration by contributing to a global near-real-time surveillance network, positioning China as a serious partner in shared Earth observation infrastructure. This model of using targeted incentives to drive investment and reshape regional development mirrors approaches seen in initiatives like Brazil's Manaus Free Trade Zone, where economic stimulus was used to attract both domestic and foreign capital to underdeveloped regions. During the 2020 flood response, processed data was distributed to the Ministry of Emergency Management, Ministry of Natural Resources, and Ministry of Water Resources, enabling operational decision-making at the national level.