China accomplishes world's 1st optical all-sky survey by commercial telescope

China's commercial space telescope Yangwang-1 completed an optical survey of the whole sky, according to its developer Origin Space, marking the world's first optical survey using a commercial space telescope.

The telescope, launched into orbit from the Taiyuan Satellite Launch Center in north China's Shanxi Province on June 11, 2021, was developed by Shenzhen-based Origin Space Technology Co., Ltd. for asteroid resource exploration and research.

Su Meng, the founder and CEO of Origin Space, said during its stay in orbit, Yangwang-1 carried out sky survey observation, atmospheric luminous observation, night remote monitoring and asteroid observation.

In addition to its astronomical, asteroid and space debris observation capabilities, Yangwang-1 can also perform nighttime remote sensing, and the spatial resolution of the nighttime light satellite images obtained has reached less than 30 meters, said Su.

Origin Space plans to build a constellation in the future, which will be composed of multiple multi-band space telescopes. The first phase of the network with 10 satellites is expected to be completed in 2023, Su said.

(With input from Xinhua)