ADVANCED LAND OBSERVING SATELLITE (ALOS): DEVELOPMENT AND ON-ORBIT STATUS

摘要

The Advanced Land Observing Satellite (ALOS) was launched on January 24, 2006. Since then, it has been operated successfully on orbit, delivering a variety of high-resolution images in numerous quantities and contributing to disaster management support many times. ALOS is a JAXA's flagship for high-resolution Earth observation. In order to contribute to cartography, regional environment monitoring, disaster management support, and resource survey, ALOS has three mission instruments: PRISM, AVNIR-2, and PALSAR. It is the only Earth observation satellite that is capable of attaining two conflicting goals: global data collection and high resolution (2.5m). To attain these goals, a variety of platform and mission technologies were developed. In particular, high-resolution optical sensor technology, phased-array synthetic aperture radar technology, precision attitude and position determination and control technology, and high-speed data handling technology were developed. This paper gives an overview of the ALOS mission and spacecraft with a particular emphasis on the critical platform and mission technologies. This also reviews the last 15 months' operations and on-orbit status of the ALOS spacecraft, with the flight data analysis of the bus subsystems and the mission subsystems.