Volcanic Eruption

The GeoEye-1 satellite sensor was successfully launched on September 6, 2008. The satellite, which was launched at Vanderberg Air Force Base, California, provides a resolution of 0.46 meters.

GeoEye-1 is capable of acquiring image data at 0.46 meter panchromatic (B&W) and 1.84 meter multispectral resolution. It also features a revisit time of less than three days, as well as the ability to locate an object within just three meters of its physical location.
The GeoEye-1 satellite sensor features the most sophisticated technology ever used in a commercial remote sensing system. This sensor is optimized for large projects, as it can produce over 350,000 square kilometers of pan-sharpened multispectral satellite imagery every day.
GeoEye-1 has been flying at an altitude of about 681 kilometers and is capable of producing imagery with a ground sampling distance of 46 centimeters, meaning it can detect objects of that diameter or greater.
During late summer of…

RapidEye is a full end-to-end commercial Earth Observation system comprising a constellation of five minisatellites, a dedicated SCC (Spacecraft Control Center), a data downlink ground station service, and a full ground segment designed to plan, acquire and process up to 5 million km² of imagery every day to generate unique land information products.
The system is owned and operated by BlackBridge. MDA (MacDonald, Dettwiler and Associates Ltd) was the mission prime contractor and was responsible for the delivery of the space and ground segments, launch of the constellation, and on-orbit commissioning and camera calibration. The two major subcontractors to MDA were SSTL (Surrey Satellite Technology Ltd.) for the spacecraft bus, SCC and spacecraft AIT (Assembly, Integration and Test) services, as well as Jena Optronik GmbH (JOP) who provided the 5-band multispectral imager (RGB, red edge, and near IR bands).
The RapidEye constellation represents a major milestone…

Cartosat-2 is an advanced remote sensing satellite with a single panchromatic camera (PAN) capable of providing scene-specific spot imageries for cartographic applications. The camera is designed to provide imageries with better than one meter spatial resolution and a swath of 10 km. The satellite will have high agility with capability to steer along and across the track up to + 45 degrees. It will be placed in a sun-synchronous polar orbit at an altitude of 630 km. It will have a revisit period of four days. The re-visit can be improved to one day with suitable orbit manoeuvres.

Several new technologies like two mirror on axis single camera, Carbon Fabric Reinforced Plastic based electro optic structure, lightweight, large size mirrors, JPEG like data compression, advanced solid state recorder, high-torque reaction wheels and high performance star sensors are being employed in Cartosat-2.

Instrument: PAN (…

The WorldView-1 offers a high-capacity, panchromatic imaging system which features 0.46m resolution imagery.

Operating at an altitude of 496 kilometers, WorldView-1 satellite has an average revisit time of 1.7 days and is capable of collecting up to 750,000 square kilometers (290,000 square miles) per day of half-meter imagery. The satellite is also equipped with state-of-the-art geo-location capabilities and exhibits stunning agility with rapid targeting and efficient in-track stereo collection.

WorldView-1 satellite sensor was successfully launched from Vandenberg Air Force Base, California, U.S.A., at 11:35 Hrs Pacific Daylight Time (PDT) on September 18th, 2007.

Instrument: WV60 (WorldView-60 camera)
- spectral range 0.45 - 0.90 µm
- swath width: 17.6km at nadir
- pushbroom imager

TerraSAR-X is a German Earth-observation satellite. Its primary payload is an X-band radar sensor with a range of different modes of operation, allowing it to record images with different swath widths, resolutions and polarisations. TerraSAR-X thus offers space-based observation capabilities that were previously unavailable. The objective of the mission is to provide value-added SAR (Synthetic Aperture Radar) data in the X-band, for research and development purposes as well as scientific and commercial applications.
The successful launch of TerraSAR-X on 15 June 2007 at 08:14 local time from the Russian Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan marked the start of a campaign to map the Earth at an unprecedented level of accuracy. The aim is to create new, high-quality radar images of the Earth’s surface.

Instrument: SAR (Synthetic Aperture Radar)
- the sensor operates in the X-band and in 3 different modes (Spotlight, Stripmap, ScanSAR)

ALOS (Advanced Land Observation Satellite) has been decommissioned. ALOS was successfully launched on January 24, 2006 from the Tanegashima Space Center.

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

The ALOS (renamed "Daichi") satellite sensor had three remote-sensing instruments: the Panchromatic Remote-sensing Instrument for Stereo Mapping (PRISM) and for digital elevation models (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 enabled precise land…

NOAA-18, known before launch as NOAA-N, is a weather forecasting satellite run by NOAA. NOAA-N (18) was launched on May 20, 2005, into a sun-synchronous orbit at an altitude of 854 km above the Earth, with an orbital period of 102 minutes. It hosts the AMSU-A, MHS, AVHRR, Space Environment Monitor SEM/2 instrument and High Resolution Infrared Radiation Sounder (HIRS) instruments, as well as the SBUV/2 ozone-monitoring instrument. It is the first NOAA POES satellite to use MHS in place of AMSU-B.

APT transmission frequency is 137.9125 MHz (NOAA-18 changed frequencies with NOAA-19 on June 23, 2009).

Instruments:
AMSU-A (Advanced Microwave Sounding Unit - A)
AVHRR/3 (Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer /…

Cartosat-1 satellite sensor was built by ISRO (Indian Space Research Organization) which is mainly intended for cartographic applications was launched by the PSLV on May 5, 2005 at Sriharikota, India.
Prior to launch, ISRO renamed the IRS-P5 spacecraft to CartoSat-1, to describe more aptly the application spectrum of its observation data. In this mission, the high resolution of the data (2.5 m GSD) is being traded at the expense of multispectral capability and smaller area coverage, with a swath width of 30 km. The data products are intended to be used in DTM (Digital Terrain Model)/DEM (Digital Elevation Model) generation in such applications as cadastral mapping and updating, land use as well as other GIS applications.

Instrument: PAN (Panchromatic Camera)
- high resolution optical imager
- max swath: 30km

IRS-P6 is an Earth observation mission within the IRS (Indian Remote-Sensing Satellite) series of ISRO (Indian Space Research Organization), Bangalore, India. The overall objectives of the IRS-P6 mission (ResourceSat-1) are to provide continued remote sensing data services on an operational basis for integrated land and water resources management. IRS-P6 is the continuation of the IRS-1C/1D missions with considerably enhanced capabilities.

Prior to launch, ISRO renamed the IRS-P6 spacecraft to ResourceSat-1, to describe more aptly the application spectrum of its observation data.

Instruments:
LISS-4 (Linear Imaging Self-Scanning Sensor-4)
LISS-3 (Linear Imaging Self-Scanning Sensor-3)
AWiFS (Advanced Wide Field Sensor)