In January 2006, JAXA launched the Advanced Land Observing Satellite (ALOS) "Daichi" by H-IIA #8. Since then, "Daichi" has been operated to support the missions including disaster monitoring, which is one of the important missions, and JAXA has been conducting demonstration experiments for more effective use of remote sensing satellites for disaster mitigation with Japanese government agencies and institutes. Also, requirements to the satellites system for disaster monitoring were summarized, which are prompt observation within 3 hours after a disaster stricken,high resolution and wide coverage by optical sensors and synthetic aperture radars. Rapid monitoring of damaged area becomes more important to keep safety and relief of the people involved in catastrophic disasters. L-band radar wave can penetrate leaves and grasses and measure the ground movement directly, however, anothoer shorter waves (X or C-band radar) has difficulty in penetrating leaves and grasses.For that reason, L-band SAR is most appropriate. This paper introduces a concept and design of satellite system with L-band SAR and optical sensors for the next generation disaster monitoring.

Date Published: 9 October 2008
PDF: 10 pages
Proc. SPIE 7106, Sensors, Systems, and Next-Generation Satellites XII, 71060K (9 October 2008); doi: 10.1117/12.800902

Published in SPIE Proceedings Vol. 7106:
Sensors, Systems, and Next-Generation Satellites XII
Roland Meynart; Steven P. Neeck; Haruhisa Shimoda; Shahid Habib, Editor(s)