Recoverable Satellites (FSW) Programme

	Search Search SinoDefence.com and its forum See Also

Last updated: 14 December 2007

The Fanhuishi Shiyan Weixing (FSW), or recoverable experimental satellite in its translation, is a series of satellites first introduced in the mid-1970s to support both military and civilian earth observation needs. Known as ‘JianBing’ in its military designation, the FSW satellites were designed to server two main purposes: imagery reconnaissance and space scientific experiments. For each flight mission, the satellite would carry one or more cameras for ground surveillance role, and maybe a scientific research mission payload which various depending on the mission requirements. China is known to have used the FSW satellite for many research projects in space physics, micro-gravity and space life science, including crystal and protein growth, cell cultivation, crop breeding, etc.

The FSW programme began in 1966. Following an initial failure in Nov 1974, the first successful FSW mission (JianBing-1 No.1) was carried out with a CZ-2 space launch vehicle in Nov 1975, with the satellite recovered two days after the launch. So far, five models have been introduced: JianBing-1 (FSW-0), JianBing-1A (FSW-1), JianBing-1B (FSW-2), JianBing-2 (FSW-3), and JianBing-4 (FSW-4). From 1975 to 2005, a total of 22 JianBing satellites have been launched, with only one failure in October 1993. An additional flight mission was carried out on 9 September 2006 under the designation ShiJian-8 (SJ-8). A modified version of the JianBing/FSW specifically designed for seed breeding, the SJ-8 was the only FSW satellite that did not use the JianBing designation.

The FSW satellites all had a blunt conical shape. The basic variant JianBing-1/FSW-0 satellite has a length of 3.14m, a maximum diameter of 2.2m, and a mass of 2.1 tonnes. The later variants are slight longer and heavier (3.1 tonnes for JianBing-1B/FSW-2). The recoverable payload is 180kg. The satellite is divided into two major sections: the equipment and retro module (about 1.6m long), and the re-entry capsule (1.5m long). The battery-powered satellite is three-axis stabilised and controlled by Xi’an Satellite Control Centre. Early models had a flight duration of 5~7 days while this was prolonged to 18~27 days on the latest FSW-3 model.

Typical onboard mission payloads of the JianBing/FSW satellite include a film camera with a higher resolution (10~15m), and a CCD camera with a lower resolution (~50m). The films were developed on Earth after it was retrieved from the landed re-entry capsule, while the CCD camera could transmit its images to the ground in a near-real-time manner. This combination enables the satellite to use the lower-resolution CCD camera for wide-range scanning, and then use the higher-resolution film camera to only capture areas of interest, thus avoiding the waste of film resulted by bad weather.

The satellites were all launched by a CZ-2 launch vehicle from Jiuquan Satellite Launch Centre in autumn season each year between August and November, with a rate of 1~2 flights per year. The landing zones of the re-entry capsule are normally located in Sichuan or Guizhou Province in southwest China.

JianBing 1 (FSW-0)

JianBing 1A (FSW-1)

JianBing 1B (FSW-2)

ShiJian 8 (FSW-3)