China launched the first satellite of its domestically developed Wuyang low-inclination remote-sensing constellation at 11:39 a.m. Beijing time on Oct. 21, 2026. The spacecraft, Xiguang-4 01, lifted off aboard a Ceres-1S Y8 rocket from a mobile platform in the Yellow Sea off Rizhao, Shandong province, and entered a 541-kilometer low Earth orbit.
The mission marks the formal start of constellation deployment for the world’s first high-frequency Earth observation network designed specifically for low-latitude regions. Wuyang is planned as a 28-satellite system comprising three pathfinders and 25 operational spacecraft. Xiguang-4 01 is also known as Wuyang Constellation Pathfinder A and Guangda-1.
The mission was organized by the Taiyuan Satellite Launch Center and conducted by Galactic Energy. It marked the 24th flight of the Ceres-1 rocket family and the seventh sea launch of the Ceres-1S variant.
Since its first maritime mission on Sept. 5, 2023, Ceres-1S has completed all seven sea launches successfully, maintaining a 100% sea-launch success rate. The latest mission also used a land-based command and offshore launch model, with the Rizhao launch control center supporting operations from the sea platform.
The Ceres-1 family is the first commercial launch vehicle developed by a Chinese private company to support both land- and sea-based launches. This provides greater flexibility in selecting launch locations and reaching different orbital inclinations while supporting a higher launch cadence.
Ceres-1 is a four-stage small launch vehicle using three solid-propellant stages and a liquid upper stage. Galactic Energy lists its payload capacity as 420 kilograms to low Earth orbit or 300 kilograms to a 500-kilometer sun-synchronous orbit.
The Wuyang program is led by Guangzhou University. Guangdong Tianyuan Technology oversees overall coordination and the constellation’s commercial development, while Xi’an Zhongke Xiguang Aerospace carried out spacecraft development, assembly, integration and testing.
A Constellation Focused on Low Latitudes
Xiguang-4 01 is a roughly 300-kilogram spacecraft designed for a 39-degree-inclination, non-sun-synchronous orbit. The constellation’s core service belt extends approximately between 35 degrees north and 35 degrees south, covering the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area, southern China and low-latitude regions along the Maritime Silk Road.
Most high-resolution Earth observation satellites operate in near-polar sun-synchronous orbits, passing a location at approximately the same local solar time. Those orbits provide consistent lighting conditions for image comparison and allow broad global coverage, but their observation capacity is distributed across a wide range of latitudes.
A 39-degree orbit cannot provide polar coverage. Instead, it concentrates satellite passes over tropical and subtropical regions, allowing a multi-satellite network to direct more of its imaging capacity toward its intended service area. Because Wuyang will operate in non-sun-synchronous orbits, local overpass times will also change, enabling observations at different times of day rather than within a fixed daily imaging window.
This architecture is intended to improve temporal sampling of rapidly changing conditions such as typhoons, flooding, crop growth, coastal activity and port operations. The tradeoff is less consistent illumination between optical acquisitions, increasing the importance of radiometric calibration and multi-sensor data fusion.
Pathfinder Combines Optical, Multispectral and Infrared Imaging
Xiguang-4 01 carries a 0.5-meter-class high-resolution camera, a two-meter multispectral camera and a wide-swath infrared payload with a stated spatial resolution of 30 meters. The spacecraft is also equipped with electric propulsion, high-rate data transmission, onboard data encryption and intelligent processing capabilities.
Wuyang Constellation Pathfinder A , Source: CCTV News
The pathfinder will validate the constellation’s orbital design, multi-payload imaging, electric-propulsion operations, satellite-to-ground links and ground-based data processing. The resulting in-orbit data will support the design and deployment of the remaining pathfinder and operational satellites.
The high-resolution camera is intended for detailed observations of infrastructure and land-surface change. The multispectral instrument can support vegetation, water and land-cover analysis, while the infrared payload adds broader-area thermal observations relevant to wildfire, urban heat and other temperature-related applications.
Wuyang is planned as three pathfinder satellites followed by 25 operational spacecraft. Future operational satellites are expected to combine submeter optical imaging, infrared and additional spectral instruments with synthetic aperture radar. SAR-equipped spacecraft would add nighttime and cloud-penetrating imaging, complementing optical and multispectral sensors that remain dependent on lighting and weather conditions.
According to the program’s deployment targets, the completed constellation is designed to provide daily high-resolution coverage of its service region and 30-minute-class disaster-response capability. These are network-level objectives and should not be interpreted as capabilities already available from the single pathfinder now in orbit.
Proposed applications include disaster response, precision agriculture, natural-resource management, ecological monitoring, ocean surveillance, port and shipping operations, forestry, fisheries and urban governance. The next step will be the commissioning of Xiguang-4 01 and validation of its spacecraft, payload and data-processing systems before deployment of the remaining two pathfinders and 25 operational satellites.
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