Abstract:Recently, the ZY-3 mapping satellite, which has been launched successfully and widely used in topographic mapping, remote sensing, and GIS, has attracted great attention. Its achievements were selected into the top ten scientific and technological progress of Chinese colleges and universities in 2012. This paper briefly describes the process of the satellite ZY-3 from the initiation to the application, explores the collaborative innovation model of government, industry, academy, research, and users, and introduces the performance indexes and range of application. Enterprise groups, colleges and universities, and research institutions have accomplished the development and application of the satellite ZY-3 following the principle of cooperative innovation under the supervision of the government and the requirements of the users. Compared with similar foreign satellites, it indicates that it is possible to develop world-class level of high-resolution remote sensing satellites for China and achieve a significant shift to promote the industrialization development of remote sensing satellites.