Chang Guang Satellite Technology, a Chinese manufacturer of communications and Earth observation satellites, has completed testing of the latest Kuanfu 02B space systems and is ready for their mass production for the Belt and Road countries. The company’s capabilities allow it to produce up to 200 remote sensing satellites and up to 200 communications satellites annually. It will also help launch and service the equipment, or simply sell the monitoring data.
Image source: Chang Guang Satellite Technology
The new Kuanfu 02B satellites, six in number, were sent into orbit for testing in September 2024. They replace the first generation of Kuanfu 01 satellites, representing the lightest and most inexpensive devices in their class. The mass of the satellites was reduced from 1,200 kg to 230 kg. The resolution of the cameras is 0.5 m. The device is capable of taking multispectral images. It also received a new camera with four mirrors outside the main axis, which makes the image clear and wide-angle. In particular, the camera scans the Earth’s surface with a strip of 150 km – about an order of magnitude more than its competitors. In one day, one satellite is capable of obtaining an image of the Earth with an area of 2 million km².
The current Jilin-1 Earth observation constellation has 117 Kuanfu satellites. The final configuration will include 300 satellites. From the very beginning, Chang Guang engineers have been addressing the issue of reducing the cost of spacecraft. The transition from the 1.2-ton Kuanfu 01 to the 0.230-ton Kuanfu 02B clearly shows that they are successfully coping with this task.
Potential buyers of Kuanfu 02B satellites include Egypt and Pakistan, if US sanctions do not interfere with this process. Chang Guang has been on the US blacklist since 2023, so there may not be many people willing to buy satellites from it. But if customers are found – which will allow them to save on purchasing a lot of Earth monitoring data – the company is ready to help with the calculation of special orbits for the needs of customers. The scale of the possibilities is astounding: few space companies are ready to declare the ability to produce up to 400 high-tech satellites annually.