China will put into space a civil high-definition survey satellite, the first of its kind in the country, in 2011, the State Bureau of Surveying and Mapping (SBSM) said Friday.

The satellite, ZY 3, would be launched from the Taiyuan Satellite Launch Center in northern Shanxi Province on a Long March 4B carrier rocket, according to Xu Deming, director of the SBSM and Vice Minister of Land and Resources.

Xu did not disclose the planned launch date.

Once successfully launched, the satellite would operate in a sun-synchronous orbit about 506 kilometers in altitude, and could produce seamless imagery of the earth's surface from 84 degrees south latitude to 84 degrees north latitude.

The satellite would be used for map updates, land resources investigation and monitoring, disaster prevention and reduction, and would serve the agricultural, environmental, urban planning, traffic and national defense sectors, Xu said.

(Xinhua News Agency December 18, 2009)