Oceansat-2 satellite and sensor details

1.0 Introduction

The Indian Remote Sensing (IRS) programme, keeping in view the immense
potential benefits of space based remote sensing in the areas of natural resources
survey, inventory and management, has embarked upon the development of this
technology in a major way through the use of orbiting satellites. While most of
these missions were designed and deployed to cater to land based applications such
as agriculture, hydrology, geology, forestry, urban planning, etc., the IRS-P4
(Oceansat-1) launched in May 1999 was the first dedicated mission for
applications pertaining to ocean studies and meteorology. Two payloads, namely,
Ocean Colour Monitor (OCM) and Multi-frequency Scanning Microwave
Radiometer (MSMR) were flown on board IRS-P4.
The Oceansat-2 mission is envisaged as the continuity service provider to IRS-P4
data users. It contains three sensors namely, OCM, Ku-band Scatterometer and
ROSA (Italian payload).

1.1 Orbit
Providing continuity of IRS-P4 services is the primary consideration for choosing
the orbit. Accordingly Oceansat-2 was launched into a near polar sunsynchronous orbit of 720 km altitude.
The major orbital parameters are
Altitude
Inclination
Period
Local time of pass
Coverage cycle

720 km
98.28 deg
99.31 min
12 noon + 10 min
2 days

1.2 Details of Payload

1.2.1 Ocean Color Monitor (OCM)
The OCM is a 8-band multi spectral camera operating in the Visible-Near IR
spectral range. This camera provides an Instantaneous Geometric Field of View of
360 m covering a swath width of 1420 km. This wide swath enables the OCM to
provide a repetevity of 2 days for any given area. Each spectral band will have
independent imaging lens assembly and a 6000 pixel CCD linear array in the focal
plane. The narrow band pass filter (10-20 nm) will be kept in front of CCD. Eight
such assemblies will be mounted on an aluminum alloy structure. To avoid sun
glint due to specular reflection from ocean surface, there is provision to tilt the
OCM by + 20 deg in the along the track direction. +20 degrees from May to
August and -20 from September to April every year. The processing electronics
consists of video processor, timing logic and interface circuits. On board
calibration using LEDs is incorporated to study any degradation in the detectors
with time. The major specifications of the OCM payload are
Instantaneous Geometric Field of View (m)
Swath (km)
Spectral Band (micron)
B1
B2
B3
B4
B5
B6
B7
B8
Quantization (bits)
SNR (At maximum signal of selected gain)
Size
Weight (kg)
Power (W)
Data rate (Mbps)

360 across track

236 along track
1420
0.402-0.422
0.433-0.453
0.480-0.500
0.500-0.520
0.545-0.565
0.610-0.630
0.725-0.755
0.845-0.885
12
>512
701 x 527 x 470 mm
78
134
20.8

The configuration of OCM payload is identical to the one flown in IRS-P4 except
that the spectral bands are modified for Band-6 and Band-7 based on the
experience from IRS-P4. For Band-6, the central wavelength is shifted from 670
nm to 620 nm to improve the reflectance from suspended sediments and for Band7, the central wavelength is shifted from 760 nm to 740 nm to avoid Oxygen
absorption bands. However, the bandwidth remains same in both cases.
1.2.2 Ku-Band Pencil Beam Scatterometer
The Ku band pencil beam scatterometer is an active microwave sensor and
operates at 13.515 GHz providing a ground resolution cell of size 50 km x 50 km.
Basically, it consists of a parabolic dish antenna of 1m diameter which is offset
mounted with a cant angle of about 46 deg. with respect to the yaw axis (earth
viewing axis). This antenna is continuously rotated at 20.5 rpm using a scan
mechanism with the scan axis along the +ve yaw axis. By using two offset feeds at
the focal plane of the antenna, two beams (Inner beam and Outer beam) are
generated which will conically scan the ground surface. The inner beam operates
with HH polarization and outer beam with VV polarization. This type of scanning
antenna concept has the following advantages compared to the fixed three antenna
configuration:
Higher Signal to Noise Ratio (SNR) improves the measurement accuracy at
low wind speeds and allows addition of horizontal polarization which can be
successfully exploited.
Directional accuracy is increased because any point on the surface is viewed
from four azimuth angles (twice by the inner beam and twice by the outer
beam) in contrast to three in three antenna fan beam configuration.
The use of conical scan mechanism and the resultant constant incidence
angle permits a wider swath with no nadir gaps unlike the fixed fan beam
type.

The other elements of the Scatterometer are two channel wave guide rotary joint ,
transmitter, receiver, frequency generator, internal calibration system, on-board
digitizer, controller and digital signal processor.

Major specifications of the Scatterometer are

Parameter
Altitude
Frequency
Wind speed range
Wind speed accuracy
Wind direction accuracy
Resolution
Polarisation
Scanning circle radius
Elevation angle
Incidence angle
Footprint
Scanning rate

Inner Beam

Outer Beam

720 km
13.515 G Hz
4 to 24 m/s
Better than 20 % (rms)
20 deg (rms)
50 km x 50km
HH
VV
725 km
910 km
43.54
49.13
50.06
57.31
30.6 x 41.97 km
34.96 x 56.98 km
20.5 rpm

1.2.3 Radio Occultation Sounding Unit for Atmospheric Studies (ROSA)

A GPS Radio occultation occurs when a transmitting GPS satellite, setting or rising
behind the earth limb, is viewed by a leo satellite that carries on board a space
qualified GPS receiver. The receiver will measure the bending angle between the
direction of the undisturbed radio signal and the apparent incoming direction of the
signal. The bending angle is related to the refractive index of the atmosphere which
depends on the temperature and humidity of the atmosphere in that point.
ROSA pay load in Oceansat-2 consists of a radio occultation (RO) antenna looking
along the satellite velocity vector, a navigation antenna looking along the zenith
and a common receiver package.
The RO antenna is planar strip antenna with +/- 45 deg. FOV in P-R plane and 0 to
27 deg. The navigation antenna is a omni directional hemi spherical antenna with
a conical FOV of 75 degree half cone angle. The receiver is a 16 channel GPS
receiver and consists of front end RF circuits like LNA, BPF, frequency

synthesizer and ADC. The GPS signals are processed using advanced GPSGLONASS ASIC developed by ESA. Each ASIC can process 4 dual frequency
channels and four such ASICs are used. The code and carried tracking functions
are carried out by ADSP 21020 processor. The ROSA scientific data will be
transmitted to BDH and TM/TC interface with BMU using MIL-std-1553 B Bus.

The specifications of ROSA pay load are given below.

Frequencies of Operation
GPS codes used
Antenna gain

LI
1560 1590 MHz
L2 1212 1242 MHz
C/A and P- Code
5 dBi for Navigation Antenna
12 dBi for RO antenna

Polarization

RHCP

Horizontal Resolution

< 300 KM for temp & humidity

Vertical Resolution
Accuracy
Input signal range

0.3 KM low troposphere

1 3 KM high tropopshere
< 1.0 K temp ;10 % or 0.2g/KG
humidity
-127 to 133 dBm POD Antenna
-130 to 148 dBm RO Antenna

Mass (KGs)

17

Power (W)

36 (standby) ; 38 (operation)