This paper introduces the acquisition of global land optical images from 2010 by the CCD cameras on HJ-1A/B to research the global land coverage and land usage situations. The HJ-1A/B is the first optical constellation with a ground resolution of 30 m and the revisit ability of 48 h in our country. When the optical remote sensing images are acquired by the HJ-1A/B constellation, the ground lighting conditions, cloud cover, season, terrain features and other factors must be considered, especially the more factors such as the satellite capacity, ground receiving ability, global land distribution and cloud distribution should be taken account of because the optical satellite has been used. Through one year's work, effective images with the cloud less than 20% covered more than 85% of global land are obtained. It is China's first middle-high resolution global coverage optical remote-sensing image sets and has been become the main data sources for global scale remote-sensing research. The ideals and applications to acquire the global land optical images by the HJ-1A/B constellation can provide references for planning optical constellations and designing payloads.