From 500 kilometers away in space, it is possible to recognize millimeter level small displacements on the Earth's surface! China's first energy engineering dedicated satellite successfully launched

At 12:33 am on May 15th, at the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center, the "Lijian-1" Y13 carrier rocket lifted China's first energy engineering dedicated satellite "Dianjian-1" into the sky. About ten minutes later, the satellite separated and smoothly entered a sun synchronous orbit about 500 kilometers above the ground. This means that China's first dedicated X-band synthetic aperture radar (SAR) satellite for monitoring large hydropower projects has officially launched the "Sky Eye" operation. The "Electric Power Construction No.1" is led by China Electric Power Construction Chengdu Institute, jointly developed by China University of Geosciences (Wuhan) and Tianyi Space Technology Co., Ltd. The total mass of the star is about 300 kilograms, with a designed lifespan of 5 years. It is equipped with X-band SAR payload, which is not affected by clouds, rain, and light, and can "open its eyes" all day long and all weather, especially suitable for the complex environment of high mountains, canyons, and misty clouds in southwestern China. How powerful is this satellite? Professor Wang Lizhe, the chief engineer of the engineering department, gave an analogy: it can accurately capture millimeter level deformation of the Earth's surface from 500 kilometers away in space. That is to say, the thickness of 10 A4 papers stacked together on the ground can also be seen clearly. The hydropower dams, reservoir bank slopes, and transportation arteries in the deep mountains, even the slow displacement of a hair's diameter, cannot escape its "eyes".