SDGSAT-1 (CBAS)

SDGSAT-1 is a single satellite (first of the planned Sustainable Development Science Satellite series) with the prime objectives of land, ocean, urban and environmental monitoring for the UN 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).  The goal of the mission is to provide high-resolution day-and-night synergistic data to support SDG indicators, depicting traces of human activities and their interaction with the Earth environment.  To accomplish this the satellite carries three sensors (Thermal Infrared Spectrometer – TIS, Glimmer Imager – GLI, and Multispectral Imager – MSI), which offer high-resolution imaging in all day and night conditions. The sensors are capable of obtaining night imagery and precise thermal and multispectral data, which makes it useful for sustainable development monitoring and disaster assessment.  SDGSAT-1 operates in a routine acquisition mode with global coverage to produce a consistent long-term data archive built for applications based on long time series.  The mission benefits numerous SDG-related services. For example, services that relate to monitoring of urban heat islands and heatwaves, wildfire detection and burned-area mapping, marine environment surveillance including algal blooms and water quality, land-surface change detection, mapping for forest, water and soil management, and mapping to support humanitarian aid and crisis situations.  The design of SDGSAT-1 with its focus on reliability, day-night synergy, global coverage and free open data delivery is expected to enable the development of new applications and meet the evolving needs of sustainable development monitoring worldwide.  SDGSAT-1 was launched on 5 November 2021, taken into orbit by a Long March-6 rocket from Taiyuan Satellite Launch Center in China.