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Advanced Land Observing Satellite available from ACRES
Written by Glenn Letham (GISuser editor)
28 September 2006
Geoscience Australia (GA) became the first receiving station outside Japan to successfully acquire and process data from the Japanese Advanced Land Observing Satellite (ALOS). The AVNIR-2 data, captured over Canberra, was acquired on the 27th of April, 2006 by Geoscience Australia’s Alice Springs Data Acquisition Facility after extensive preparations by the Australian Centre for Remote Sensing (ACRES). ALOS is expected to be available from ACRES in October.
ALOS will supply the Australian Government and the community with high quality, low cost Earth observation data for purposes including topographic mapping and environmental and disaster monitoring.
The ALOS satellite carries 3 imaging sensors:
PRISM – a panchromatic sensor with 2.5 metre spatial resolution and stereo viewing / Digital Elevation Model generation capability
AVNIR-2 – a visible and near Infrared multi-spectral sensor at 10 metre spatial resolution
PALSAR – a phased array type L-band synthetic aperture radar (SAR) sensor
Under an arrangement with the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA), GA is one of only four worldwide nodes to down-link, process and distribute ALOS satellite data products. Other worldwide nodes are JAXA in Japan, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) in the USA and the European Space Agency (ESA).
GA is licensed to distribute ALOS data for non-commercial purposes within Australia, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea and many Pacific islands. Other commercial entities will distribute data for commercial purposes. Images are planned for release by late October 2006, but this will depend on a number of factors including a review by JAXA of the calibration and validation results from the ALOS sensors.
About ALOS
ALOS is one of the largest Earth observing satellites in the world. Its objectives are:
To provide maps for Japan and other countries including those in Asian-Pacific region (Cartography).
To perform regional observation for "sustainable development" (harmonization between Earth environment and development) (Regional Observation).
To conduct disaster monitoring around the world (Disaster Monitoring).
To survey natural resources (Resources Survey).
To develop technology necessary for future Earth observing satellites (Technology Development).
Geoscience Australia (GA) became the first receiving station outside Japan to successfully acquire and process data from the Japanese Advanced Land Observing Satellite (ALOS). The AVNIR-2 data, captured over Canberra, was acquired on the 27th of April, 2006 by Geoscience Australia’s Alice Springs Data Acquisition Facility after extensive preparations by the Australian Centre for Remote Sensing (ACRES). ALOS is expected to be available from ACRES in October.
