Brazil received its first signals from the China-Brazil Earth Resources Satellite (Cbers-2B) at 10:39 a.m. local time (1439 GMT) Wednesday, Brazil's National Satellite Control Space Research Agency (Inpe) said.
The satellite, launched in the early hours of Wednesday from Taiyuan in the Chinese province of Shanxi, sent its first images to the Cuiaba Tracking Station in Brazil's Mato Grosso state.
Cbers-2B passed over Brazil on its eighth earth orbit, and will make 14 orbits a day of 100-minutes each, Inpe said, adding that the data showed that the communication and telemetry systems are working correctly.
The satellite sent orbital parameters showing it had watched the Earth, verified its altitude and held its course correctly.
Jose Carlos Epiphanio, the Cbers program coordinator, said that by Friday the satellite will have sent its first images, which will be uploaded to the Internet immediately.
Cbers joints the U.S. Landsat, French Spot and Indian Resource Sat as major Earth-monitoring operations. The first Cbers satellite was launched in 1999 and operated until 2003, when the second Cbers-2 joined it in orbit. China and Brazil agreed in 2004 to send Cbers-2B into orbit to ensure data continuity.
The two nations plan to send two more satellites into orbit: Cbers-3 in 2010 and Cbers-4 in 2013.
Source: Xinhua
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