ALOS Satellite Sensor

 

NASDA's ALOS (Advanced Land Observation Satellite) was successfully launched on January 24, 2006 from the Tanegashima Space Center. The ALOS (renamed "Daichi") has three remote-sensing instruments: the Panchromatic Remote-sensing Instrument for Stereo Mapping (PRISM) for digital elevation mapping (DEMs), the Advanced Visible and Near Infrared Radiometer type 2 (AVNIR-2) for precise land coverage observation, and the Phased Array type L-band Synthetic Aperture Radar (PALSAR) for day-and-night and all-weather land observation and enables precise land coverage observation and can collect enough data by itself for mapping on a scale of 25,000:1, without relying on points of reference on the ground. Some of its objectives are cartography, disaster monitoring, natural resource surveys and technology development.

ALOS is one of the world's largest earth observation satellites whose function is to collect global and high resolution land observation data. ALOS data will be made available at conditions similar to those of ERS and Envisat missions, namely for scientific 'Category-1' use as well as commercial applications.

 

 

 

 

ALOS Satellite Sensor Characteristics

Resolution	2.5m panchromatic 10m multispectral
Launch Vehicle	H-IIA Rocket
Launch Site	Tanegashima Space Center
Satellite Weight	Approximately 4,000kg (at Lift-off)
Power	Approximately 7,000W (End of Life)
Designed Life	3 to 5 years
Orbit	Sun Synchronous Sub-Recurrent Orbit Recurrent Period: 46 days Sub cycle: 2 days Altitude: Approximately 692km (above the equator) Inclination: Approximately 98.2 degrees

AVNIR-2
Band	Wavelength Region (µm)	Resolution (m)
1	0.42-0.50 (blue)	10
2	0.52-0.60 (green)	10
3	0.61-0.69 (red)	10
4	0.76-0.89 (near-IR)	10
PALSAR
Band	Frequency (GHz)	Resolution (m)

SAR-L	1.3	10 and 100
PRISM
Band	Wavelength Region (µm)	Resolution (m)
PAN	0.52-0.77	2.5