The Ministry of Natural Resources formally took over operation of two marine observation satellites on Thursday.

Control of the HY-1D and HY-2C satellites was handed over to the ministry by the China National Space Administration after the successful completion of trial operations in orbit. They are tasked with providing data that will be used in China's marine resources development, marine environmental protection, disaster prevention and relief at sea, maritime traffic coordination, polar exploration and climate change research, the ministry said in a statement.

HY-1D was launched atop a Long March 2C carrier rocket in June last year from the Taiyuan Satellite Launch Center in Shanxi province and now operates in a sun-synchronous orbit.

It works with its predecessor-HY-1C, which was launched in September 2018-as part of a small network for scientific marine observation. Its task is to observe seawater color and coastal resources and environments, and track the locations of ships.