ALOS data is available through KSAT

Japans Advanced Land Observation Satellite (ALOS), launched in 2006 by the Japan Aerospace and Exploration Agency (JAXA), offers a new source of geospatial information for users of satellite imagery around the world.

The ALOS satellite is carrying 3 independent sensing system:

• One radar sensor; PALSAR, an L-band SAR instrument
• Two optical instruments; PRISM (Panchromatic Remote-sensing Instrument for   Stereo Mapping) for high resolution imagery, and AVNIR-2  (Advanced Visible and  Near-Infrared Radiometer, 2nd generation) for land coverage observation.

The satellite is being tasked to compile a global archive of imagery that will be distributed by the SARCOM consortium. (KSAT is one of 8 stakeholders in SARCOM).

SARCOM International pricelist

JAXA has defined a standard tasking scenario for ALOS data on the basis of climatic criteria to achieve the mission objective of building a global complementary imagery: 2.5-m black and white and 10-m multispectral optical imagery, and radar imagery at a resolution of 10 – 100 m.

This acquisition strategy will remain unchanged for the years ahead and will take priority over other tasking requests (with the exception of urgent, one-off acquisitions in response to a major disaster).
The systematic observation strategy is explained and detailed at the ALOS web page.

(21.04.2008)