FEASIBILITY COMPARISON FOR EARTH OBSERVATION FROM OPTICAL IMAGER AND SARIMAGER ONBOARD A SPACECRAFT

摘要

The two sensors vide Synthetic aperture radar and the optical imagers are potential candidates on-board satellite for the use of earth observation. Depending upon the end use, purpose and satellite capabilities, one of the above may be more feasible as compared to the other. The factors, which play decisive role in the selection, are such as; actual requirements, power availability on-board the spacecraft, data handling capacity, budgetary provisions and technological constraints. It may be stated that all these factors are normally given due consideration prior to launching of an earth observation satellite, but here the emphasis is typically on the mutual comparison of the two sensors, so that a document is made readily available for ascertaining fulfillments of the requirements. The paper on one hand discusses the typical requirements for a sensor selection and on the other hand technological tradeoffs to be considered on-board a satellite. To augment assistance to the interested reader, ground station requirements are also compared for both types of the sensors.