The main reason is that the polar-orbiting satellites currently in use are in sun-synchronous orbit, orbiting the north and south poles of the earth, and the running period is about 1 15 minutes. The long regression period limits the application of polar-orbiting satellites in the monitoring and early warning of disastrous weather, and it is impossible to realize real-time continuous monitoring of the weather system and meet the needs of disaster early warning, especially the observation of extreme meteorological phenomena such as rapidly changing typhoons and sudden rainstorms is slightly insufficient. The geostationary orbit microwave meteorological satellite can, and its function is better.

China is located in the Asian monsoon region, and extreme meteorological disasters such as typhoons and rainstorms occur frequently, causing a large number of property losses and casualties. According to statistics, the economic losses caused by natural disasters caused by meteorological factors account for 80% of the national disaster losses every year. Therefore, strengthening meteorological monitoring and forecasting, especially the monitoring and early warning of disastrous sudden weather, is particularly important for recovering economic losses and improving economic benefits.

The large temperature, humidity distribution and liquid water content in the cloud are the key physical parameters for atmospheric monitoring and weather forecast. At present, we mostly use polar-orbiting meteorological satellites to detect the above physical parameters, which is also a relatively mature technology. The geostationary meteorological satellite has obvious advantages. Geostationary meteorological satellites are divided into two series: geostationary meteorological satellites, geostationary optical satellites and geostationary microwave satellites. At present, geostationary meteorological satellites in orbit are all optical series satellites, which rely on infrared visible light for detection. Optical satellites are easily influenced by clouds, and only the top information of clouds can be obtained. The geostationary orbit microwave detection technology is still a blank in the world, and it is the strategic commanding height that international space powers are competing to pursue at this stage.

The prototype of the geostationary orbit millimeter-wave atmospheric detector developed by China and Europe has filled the international gap. It belongs to microwave series satellites, which can not only observe continuously in real time, but also have strong penetrating ability, and can realize all-weather atmospheric detection, especially when the detector works in two important atmospheric detection channels, namely, the oxygen absorption band of 50GHz~56GHz and the water vapor absorption band of 183GHz, it can obtain the three-dimensional distribution of temperature and humidity profiles in a large range.