China has launched a new civilian high-resolution mapping satellite, Ziyuan III 02, into space from Taiyuan Satellite Launch Centre in the Shanxi province.

The Ziyuan III 02 satellite, weighing 2.7t, was launched aboard a Long March 4B rocket, reported Xinhua.

During the latest mission, which is the 228th flight of a Long March carrier rocket, two NewSat satellites from Uruguay were also launched.

"Technical indicators of the Ziyuan III satellites are on par with their most advanced peers anywhere in the world."

Planned to be used for land resource surveys, natural disaster prevention, agricultural development, water resources management, urban planning and other tasks, Ziyuan III 02 is the second satellite in a remote-sensing mapping system that China aims to build by 2030.

The newly launched satellite will join its predecessor Ziyuan III 01, which was launched in January 2012, to create a network and capture high-definition, 3D images and multispectral data.

Chief designer of the Ziyuan III satellites Cao Haiyi stated that the new satellite is capable to gather 3D images of objects which are of 2.5m or longer and can reduce difference of vertical positioning to 1m using an onboard laser range finder.

Earlier, Ziyuan III 01 could determine 4m in 3-D imaging and 5m in vertical measurement.

Cao was quoted by IANS as saying: "Technical indicators of the Ziyuan III satellites are on par with their most advanced peers anywhere in the world."

The Ziyuan III 02 satellite was developed by the China Academy of Space Technology (CAST) under China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation (CASC), which is the primary contractor for China’s space programme, reported gbtimes.com.