At 13:40:04 on September 21, 2020, China successfully launched the HY-2C satellite with the Long March 4B carrier rocket at the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center. It is a marine operational satellite supported by the Medium and Long-term Development Plan of National Civil Space Infrastructure (2015-2025) and built under the auspices of the Ministry of Natural Resources. After launching, it will conduct observing mission in collaboration with HY-2B which was already in orbit, this will greatly improve the coverage and timeliness of global observation of marine dynamic environmental elements. It is of great significance to build maritime power, enhance the capacity of disaster prevention and mitigation, carry out marine scientific research, and solving the issue of global climate changes.

The HY-2C satellite adopts a non-sun-synchronous orbit with the inclination of 66°. It is equipped with five sensors including radar altimeter, microwave scatterometer, calibration radiometer, data collection system and ship automatic identification system. It can effectively obtain marine dynamic environment information such as sea wind, ocean wave, ocean current, sea temperature, mesoscale vortex, etc.

While providing services for multiple fields, the marine satellites keep improving their capabilities in terms of observation accuracy, spatial resolution, and timeliness. After the launch of HY-2D next year, the three satellites of marine dynamic environment will gather in space and form an all-weather, all-day, high-frequency, medium and large-scale global monitoring system of marine dynamic environment, so as to realize high timeliness, high precision and synchronous acquisition of global marine environment parameter. By then, China's marine satellites' comprehensive observation capabilities and application service capabilities will achieve a qualitative leap.

At present, the National Satellite Ocean Application Service has established ground receiving application systems including Beijing Station, Mudanjiang Station, Hainan Station, Hangzhou Station and corresponding sub-systems. In the future, the National Satellite Ocean Service Center will organize satellite in-orbit testing with relevant application departments in the water conservancy, agriculture, emergency, and meteorological industries to ensure that the satellite is put into operation on time.