China and UK strike space deal

Well it seems that not everything is made in China these days.

Chinese and UK companies have agreed a deal that will result in three high-resolution Earth observation spacecraft being built to map China's extraordinary growth from orbit.

The deal was penned between Guildford satellite imagery provider DMCii and Beijing-based company 21AT.

It means DMCii can now roll out its new constellation of spacecraft that will picture details on the surface of the planet less than a metre wide.

They should be ready to launch in 2014.

For 21AT (Twenty First Century Aerospace Technology Company Ltd), it means it can have ready access to Earth imagery without the worry of having to launch and operate satellites in orbit.

The Chinese company will use the pictures to monitor land use and land-cover changes. In particular, the data will enable regional governments working with 21AT to plan better the extraordinary rate of development in China's cities.

The satellites for the DMC-3 constellation, as it is called, will be manufactured by DMCii's parent company, Surrey Satellite Technology Limited (SSTL).

Here is a link from the BBC www.bbc.co.uk...

The article seems a little vague as to what exactly this space craft is, there is no mention on if it will be a manned one or not but you would expect it to not be.
does anyone have any more info on this and will this just be another google earth or is this thing more detailed than that.

Originally posted by lewman
The article seems a little vague as to what exactly this space craft is, there is no mention on if it will be a manned one or not but you would expect it to not be.
does anyone have any more info on this and will this just be another google earth or is this thing more detailed than that.

They have a picture of it, of course they aren't manned.

It's like a high resolution version of Google Earth, with more frequent updates, though who knows if China will make the imagery available to Google or not, they might.

If course you can see China on Google Earth now, but the resolution is lower, and the updates are probably less frequent than will be available with this imagery.

China was expected to double in population from 1 billion to just under 2 billion people, even with the implementation of their 1 child per family restriction, so the growth already is amazing, but plenty more is coming.