On Feb 27, China's Long March 8 carrier rocket launched from the Wenchang Space Launch Center with 22 satellites, including a city-specific satellite for Xiamen and a satellite for Anxi Tieguanyin, a premium variety of oolong tea from Anxi in Fujian province.

Cooperated by the Xiamen People's Government and Xiamen Tianwei Technology Co, the Xiamen city customized satellite weighs 30 kilograms and will fly an average of 1.5 times per day over Xiamen.

The satellite, which will provide more robust remote sensing data for oceans, natural resources, ecological environment protection, forestry, intelligent agriculture, and other fields to contribute to the city's and province's development, such as boosting Fujian's innovative digitalization, will be the first city customized satellite not only in Xiamen but also in Fujian province.

Anxi Tieguanyin will utilize the other satellite, which is light, cheap, uses little power, and has a high resolution.

The satellite, which is equipped with multispectral data collecting capabilities, can monitor the growth of each tea plant in the tea plantation from an altitude of 535 kilometers, as well as pest and disease monitoring, to assure the quality of the tea leaves.

In addition to these two Fujian satellites, the Long March 8 rocket carried another 20 satellites, marking a Chinese record for the most satellites launched in a single rocket launch.

A design sketch of the Xiamen city customized satellite. [Photo/WeChat account: FJzhengfu]