After the successful launch of Gaofen-1 in April 2013, China will launch its second high definition optical Earth Observation satellite, Gaofen-2, in the course of 2014, as the State Administration of Science, Technology and Industry for National Defense (SASTIND) announced.
The Gaofen satellite mission will provide support to environmental and climate change monitoring, precision farming, urban planning and disaster management. Gaofen-1 already provided data for several disasters in 2013, including the Lushan earthquake in Sichuan, floods in northeast China and a major earthquake in Pakistan. Gaofen-2 is the second of five or six high definition Earth Observation satellites to be launched as part of the Gaofen satellite series before 2016.
