In recent years, a number of commercial Earth observation missions have been initiated with the aim to gather data in the visible and near-infrared wavelength range. Some of these missions aim at medium resolution (5 to 10 m) multi-spectral imaging with the special background of daily revisiting. Typical applications aim at monitoring of farming area for growth control and harvest prediction, irrigation control, or disaster monitoring such as hail damage in farming, or flood survey. In order to arrive at profitable business plans for such missions, it is mandatory to establish the space segment, the spacecraft with their opto-electronic payloads, at minimum cost while guaranteeing maximum reliability for mission success. As multiple spacecraft are required for daily revisiting, the solutions are typically based on micro-satellites. The RapidEye microsatellites successfully launched on 29th August 2008 are such a constellation. Each of the five small Earth- Observation satellites is equipped with one multi-spectral optical scanner imaging in five spectral bands. It is described the multi-spectral optical scanners of the RapidEye mission and presents the imaging characteristics, design features and the operation of the scanner in the orbit.
Multi-spectral optical scanners for commercial earth observation missions
Optische Multispektral-Scanner für kommerzielle Erdbeobachtungsmissionen
2009
4 Seiten, 4 Bilder, 2 Tabellen
Conference paper
English
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