Optical design for multichannel scanning radiometer on board FY-2 geostationary meteorological satellite

China's first geostationary meteorological satellite FY-2 was successfully launched on June 10, 1997. The main effective payload onboard the satellite-the multichannel scanning radiometer (MCSR)-was developed by the Shanghai Institute of Technical Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences. The scanning radiometer can acquire the Earth images from three channels of visible, infrared and water vapor simultaneously. From the images obtained one can see that the images are very clear with enough signal-to-noise ratio. This paper takes a brief look-back of the design and development of the optical system of the scanning radiometer.