A new satellite, jointly developed by China and Brazil, was sent into space on Friday, pushing forward the aerospace cooperation between the two countries, according to the China National Space Administration.
The China-Brazil Earth Resource Satellite-4A was launched on a Long March-4B carrier rocket at 11:22 a.m. Friday Beijing Time from the Taiyuan Satellite Launch Center in north China's Shanxi Province.
The satellite is the sixth satellite under the earth resource satellite cooperation program between the two countries. It will obtain global optical remote-sensing data and support the Brazilian government's monitoring of the Amazon rainforest and the country's environmental changes.
The satellite was jointly developed by the China Academy of Space Technology and the National Institute for Space Research of Brazil. The carrier rocket was developed by the Shanghai Academy of Spaceflight Technology.
By the same rocket, another eight satellites were put into orbit, including a wide-range multispectral remote-sensing microsatellite donated to Ethiopia.