Young Scientist Han Changpei: Install “Insight” for Fengyun Meteorological Satellites

In the space that is 35,800 kilometers away from the earth, there is a sparkling instrument “gazing” at the people on earth.

It is the “Super Insight” installed on China’s new generation of geostationary-orbit meteorological satellites (FY-4)--the world’s first atmospheric sounding interferometer.
 The research and development of this epoch-making instrument were prior to those of the American scientists, and Han Changpei was the deputy chief designer of this “Super Insight”.

Han Changpei is a researcher and doctoral supervisor at Shanghai Institute of Technical Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences. Almost 40 years old now, he has been engaged in the research and development of Fengyun satellite instruments for 18 years.

When he first stepped out of the college gate in 2000, he was still a student majoring automation. The geostationary-orbit satellite payload research group at the Shanghai Institute of Technical Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences recognized his talents and recruited him.

It was still “the age of FY-2” during the first three, four years at the research group. Back then, Han Changpei participated in the the research and development of multichannel scanning radiometer--an important payload of FY-2 (meteorological satellite series), and his main job was to test this instrument.

Recalling the times when he first jointed the research group, Han Changpei said that he was fortunate to be able to follow academician Chen Guilin, an expert in space infrared remote sensing technology, as well as a number of other scientists; he was like a sponge back then, soaking in the lab with strong thirst for knowledge, and obtained his master’s degree while working.

When the project of FY-4 meteorological satellite was set up in 2008, Han Changpei had grown to be the team’s main force. He had already obtained his doctoral degree early at that time, and one of his responsibilities was to research and develop the “Super Insight”--atmospheric sounding interferometer.

The research of this instrument was taken up by American scientific researchers as early as the 1990s; however, in 2006, NASA and U.S. Department of the Treasury announced to give up this research due to financial and technical limitations. China launched this research in around 2000, and made a prototype in 2006. In 2007, after a focused debate, Chinese meteorologists decided to bite the bullet and tackle this difficulty.

As one of the leading forces of this instrument’s development, Han Changpei mainly took charge of the design, testing and production of the entire instrument. Normally, instruments have two stages, prototype and sample; however, this instrument was too difficult, said Han Changpei, that he added a stage of quasi prototype.

In the 8 years between 2008 to 2016, he and the team built models of three stages around this instrument, and “back then, we basically worked past 11 pm everyday. It was normal for us to return home with the moon above and go to work at 8 in the morning.”

“We actually quite enjoyed it. When you love something, you don’t feel pain. It is like playing balls--you feel tired but not pain; also, there were a lot of fun things to study and see, and that was pretty interesting,” he said.

In 2016, after an “Eight-year War of Resistance”, this epoch-making instrument, the world’s very first atmospheric sounding interferometer, was finally launched into the space.

When recalling that moment, Han Changpei said that there are many life images fixed in his mind, and that was one of them. In the early morning of the launch of FY-4 on December 11, 2016, he was busy giving instructions in the monitoring and control hall; he did not realize until the launch was completed that his hands were sweating heavily, “I was really nervous at that time.”

Now, FY-4’s atmospheric sounding interferometer has come into play, and is busy doing large-scale, high-frequency vertical surveys of the atmosphere, such as “three-dimensional scans” of typhoons, opening a new model for the observation and forecast of China’s weather system.

Han Changpei also moved onto the research and development of FY-4 02. In addition to developing the atmospheric sounding interferometer, he also served as the chief designer of the multi-channel scanning radiometer. He said, “the pace of scientific research is becoming increasingly fast. Back in FY-4, we spent 10 years making the 01 satellite, but now, as the technical indicators of the 02 star have been further improved, it has to be produced in three years,”

After all these years dealing with instruments, Han Changpei has his own experience. He said that instruments are the carrier, carrying your various emotions. After debugging instruments and solving problems, he often feels and thinks of something, and combines what he gathers with daily work and life.

For him, life is a feedback system, and for the output to achieve the input goal, the middle needs very good algorithm and execution. “All people and things are like that; they need feedback and execution to make different parts combine well. This is what goes down to the bone after learning control all these years.”

As to the future, he said that he plans to go along the “Fengyun path”, “watch the application and research of new instruments, unite the project group, and make better instruments.”