China Launches Satellite TanSat to Monitor Global Carbon Emissions

China launched its first carbon dioxide monitoring satellite early Thursday as part of the efforts to understand, monitor and tackle greenhouse gas emissions. The carbon tracking satellite, named TanSat, was launched via a Long March-2D rocket from Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in northwest China’s Gobi Desert at 03:22 Thursday morning. With this launch, China becomes the third country after Japan and the United States to monitor greenhouse gases through its own satellite. The 620-kg satellite was sent into a sun synchronous orbit about 700 kilometers above the earth and will monitor the concentration, distribution and flow of carbon dioxide (CO2) in the atmosphere, said Yin Zengshan, chief designer of TanSat at the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) micro-satellite research institute. The satellite will help the understanding of climate change, and provide China’s policymakers with independent data. “We call carbon dioxide ’trace gas’, because it con