FY-3 is the 2nd generation of Chinese polar-orbiting meteorological satellite. There are 11 instruments on FY-3, including three sounding instruments, two ozone instruments, two earth radiation budget instruments, three imaging remote sensors, and one space environment monitoring unit. FY-3 satellite can obtain global, all-weather, three-dimensional, quantitative and multi-spectral parameters of atmosphere, land surface and sea surface. FY-3 satellite has three missions, involving weather forecasting, climate monitoring, and natural-disaster monitoring.

The detection performance and application ability of FY-3 has reached the world-class levels recently represented by the American SSO meteorological satellite NOAA, ESA’s METOP and America’s new generation SSO meteorological satellite NPP.