{"id":286895,"date":"2026-01-16T03:43:07","date_gmt":"2026-01-16T03:43:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/286895\/"},"modified":"2026-01-16T03:43:07","modified_gmt":"2026-01-16T03:43:07","slug":"could-chinas-yaogan-47-satellite-have-a-lens-as-wide-as-the-hubble-telescope","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/286895\/","title":{"rendered":"Could China\u2019s Yaogan-47 satellite have a lens as wide as the Hubble Telescope?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>One of China\u2019s latest <a target=\"_self\" class=\"e1yy41x40 ef9u0v01 css-1ankfgb ecgc78b0\" href=\"https:\/\/www.scmp.com\/news\/china\/science\/article\/3320140\/us-earth-imaging-satellite-fleet-creating-low-cost-orbital-landmines-china-team-says?module=inline&amp;pgtype=article\" title=\"\" data-qa=\"BaseLink-renderAnchor-StyledAnchor\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Earth observation satellites<\/a> operating in low orbit could feature an optical aperture at a two-metre scale with \u201cglobal leading\u201d remote sensing capabilities, according to a China Science Daily report on Thursday last week.<\/p>\n<p datatype=\"p\" data-qa=\"Component-Component\" class=\"e8zc9q40 css-1c6uqr6 ec74h0k1\">The report refers to the Yaogan-47 satellite, which was launched aboard a Long March 4B carrier rocket from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Centre on December 9.<\/p>\n<p datatype=\"p\" data-qa=\"Component-Component\" class=\"e8zc9q40 css-1c6uqr6 ec74h0k1\">For comparison, the Hubble Space Telescope and likely the US KH-11 spy satellite have main mirrors with a 2.4-metre aperture.<\/p>\n<p datatype=\"p\" data-qa=\"Component-Component\" class=\"e8zc9q40 css-1c6uqr6 ec74h0k1\">The Long March 4B rocket used for this launch had a low Earth orbit payload capacity of around four tonnes. In comparison, the similar-aperture Hubble telescope weighs about 11 tonnes and a KH-11 satellite weighs up to 17 tonnes.<\/p>\n<p>This suggests that Yaogan-47 may not carry a similarly <a target=\"_self\" class=\"e1yy41x40 ef9u0v01 css-1ankfgb ecgc78b0\" href=\"https:\/\/www.scmp.com\/news\/china\/science\/article\/3329364\/chinese-team-plans-test-powerful-chip-worlds-largest-optical-telescope-spain?module=inline&amp;pgtype=article\" title=\"\" data-qa=\"BaseLink-renderAnchor-StyledAnchor\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">massive telescope<\/a> or could instead employ a lightweight design.<\/p>\n<p datatype=\"p\" data-qa=\"Component-Component\" class=\"e8zc9q40 css-1c6uqr6 ec74h0k1\">The Post cannot independently verify whether the reported two-metre optical aperture component is actually on board the Yaogan-47.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"One of China\u2019s latest Earth observation satellites operating in low orbit could feature an optical aperture at a&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":286896,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[270],"tags":[20370,20369,4563,18,143723,6621,143716,143715,3095,19,143725,17,371,386,11396,143719,143728,134456,143727,133,143717,451,107,143720,143724,143722,143726,143718,143721],"class_list":{"0":"post-286895","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-space","8":"tag-cas","9":"tag-china-science-daily","10":"tag-chinese-academy-of-sciences","11":"tag-eire","12":"tag-enmap","13":"tag-germany","14":"tag-gf-5-satellite","15":"tag-hisui","16":"tag-hubble-space-telescope","17":"tag-ie","18":"tag-ieee-transactions-on-geoscience-and-remote-sensing","19":"tag-ireland","20":"tag-italy","21":"tag-japan","22":"tag-jiuquan-satellite-launch-centre","23":"tag-kh-11-spy-satellite","24":"tag-landsat-9","25":"tag-long-march-4b","26":"tag-prisma","27":"tag-science","28":"tag-shanghai-institute-of-technical-physics","29":"tag-space","30":"tag-us","31":"tag-wang-yueming","32":"tag-worldview-4","33":"tag-xiopm","34":"tag-yaogan-47","35":"tag-zhang-geng","36":"tag-zhuhai-1-03-satellite"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/115902716618642683","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/286895","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=286895"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/286895\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/286896"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=286895"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=286895"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=286895"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}