Gaofen-2 is the second satellite of the HDEOS program, which main goal is to provide Chinese governmental and commercial organizations with close-to-real-time imagery. GAofen-2 is part of the CHEOS (China High Resolution Earth Observation System) family with the objective to provide high accuracy geographical mapping, land and resource surveying, environment change monitoring, near real-time observation for disaster prevention and mitigation, as well as for agriculture and forest estimation.

Gaofen-2 is equipped with 2 PAN/MS cameras, that can collect images with resolution of 0,80 m (nadir) in panchromatic and 3,24 m (nadir) in the multispectral bands on a swath of 45 km. Gaofen-2 is a follow-on mission of the Gaofen-1 technology demonstration mission, a series of high-resolution optical Earth observation satellites of CNSA.