IAC-09-B1.2.

GEO-AFRICA:
A DEDICATED AFRICAN SPACE OBSERVATORY

Author
Mr Cyrille Tourneur
EADS Astrium, Toulouse, France, cyril.tourneur@astrium.eads.net

Co-author
Mr Dominique Pawlak
EADS Astrium, Toulouse, France, dominique.pawlak@astrium.eads.net
Mr Xavier Sembely
EADS Astrium, Toulouse, France, xavier.sembely@astrium.eads.net

ABSTRACT

GEO-Africa is the name of a new space mission, presently under discussion and consolidation in
a group associating major African space remote sensing and applications actors, international
organisations and a European team led by EADS Astrium.
GEO-Africa is a geostationary space imagery infrastructure aimed at being one of the
contributions for answering to the level & quality of medium resolution EO data that the main
applications (management of environmental resources such as water management, land use-land
change, soil erosion-desertification, forest monitoring, risk management, agriculture, etc…)
require at the African Continent scale.
GEO-Africa is analysed as one of the bricks of the system of systems that Africa needs for a
better management of its natural resources and environment and a particular attention is given to
the synergy and complementarity with existing-forthcoming equipments and programs (space and
ground infrastructures, capacity building) national and international.

GEO-Africa features innovative, yet technologically available features such as permanent

observation and fast access, continental coverage with up to 13 hours of observation per day over
Africa.

This paper provides a first overview of the overall GEO-Africa concept and performance.

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 FULL TEXT

GEO AFRICA SENSING CONCEPT The super spectral instrumental concept

offers VNIR imaging capacities in 10 narrow
The GEO Africa mission is based on an bands and a large panchromatic band,
optical observation satellite placed in the complemented by a SWIR channel.
geostationary orbit. Wavelengths are selected to provide
atmospheric correction capabilities and
The remote sensing concept allows
enable thematic applications based on super
production of 300 km x 300 km elementary
spectral imagery.
scenes in Visible & Near InfraRed (VNIR) and
Short Wavelength InfraRed (SWIR) spectral
domains. Central
Domain Width (nm)
wavelength (nm)

Visible 443 40
Visible 490 20
Visible 550 20
Visible 640 20
Visible 672 20
Visible 702 20
Visible 722 20
NIR 782 20
Figure 1: Africa mapping with 300 x 300 km scenes.
NIR 865 40
Less than 420 scenes are needed to map political
Africa, including mainland and islands. NIR 910 40
VNIR (PAN) 650 400
The corresponding nadir looking Ground SWIR 1600 100
Sampling Distances (GSD) are respectively
25m for VNIR bands and 75m for SWIR Table 1: GEO Africa spectral bands. The number of
band. bands to be collected can be selected for each
image acquisition
The selected imaging principle is based on
the ‘step and stare’ concept. It consists of two THE OBSERVATION DOMAIN
consecutive phases: The ‘step’ phase during
which the entire satellite body is pointed Optical observation from the geo stationary
toward the target scene and the ‘stare’ phase, orbit takes place in a extended domain with
consisting of the actual image collection with regard to the familiar Low Earth Orbit (LEO)
detector matrix. concepts. This concerns mainly the relative
Array sun to satellite observation angles which
Scene N detector range differs from the LEO based satellites
performing image collection at fixed local
time.
Telescope
Satellite
body
GEO Africa daily timeline
Scene
motion
N+1 Imaged scene GEO Africa daily operations timeline is driven
Step phase Stare phase
by the satellite concept which provides the
capability to perform image collection up to
Figure 2: Principle of the ‘step and stare’ concept. 13 hours per day.

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 00:00 Angular domain
In terms of observation angles, two angles
are considered to compare GEO Africa
Rest and maintenance observation domain with the classical LEO
period missions:
• The Sun Zenithal Angle (SZA) which is
the angle of the incoming solar flux with
the local nadir. LEO missions such as
06:00 18:00
SPOT5 are operated with SZA extending
up to 60°
• The phase angle which is the direct angle
Observation
between the observation line of sight and
period the sun illumination angle. For SPOT5,
the maximum phase angle is up to 75°

12:00

Sun direction
Figure 3: Satellite daily timeline: Thanks to the satellite
design concept, image collection can begin from
5:30 (satellite local time) up to 18:30 (satellite
local time)
Regarding the incoming optical flux, the
radiance levels available over Africa for Geo
stationary observation allow an image
acquisition duration of 11 to 12h throughout
the year as shown on figure 4. This duration
is consistent with the satellite’s capability

Figure 5: Observation angles definition

According to these definitions, 2 observation

domains can be considered for GEO Africa:
• The LEO ‘like’ domain for which the
above defined angles do not exceed
those of the classical LEO missions. GEO
Africa can perform up to 10 hours of
continuous observation over Africa within
this domain.
• The ‘extended’ GEO domain for which the
phase angle can extend up to 95° for an
SZA below 60°. This domain allows
continuous observation from 5:00 GMT
up to 17:00 GMT but requires advanced
Figure 4: Various radiance levels over Africa for
Bidirectional Reflectance Distribution
different hours and seasons: Observation can begin
from 5:00 GMT on Madagascar & Somalia till Function (BRDF) inversion models for
17:00 GMT over westernmost areas. image exploitation.

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 Instant accessibility vs time for various phase angles THE SYSTEM CONCEPT
100%
90%
80% 105 ° Image downlink concept
% of Africa accessible

95 °
70%
85 ° With regard to the regulatory aspects, few
60%
50%
75 ° bands of frequencies are available for GEO
65 °
40% 55 ° Africa to allow image data downlink since
30% 45 ° many satellites currently operate close to
20%
LEO Domain
foreseen GEO Africa position on the
10%
0%
geostationary arc.
In accordance with ITU regulation, an
0

0
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:3

:3

:3

:3

:3

:3

:3

:3

:3

:3

:3

:3

:3
opportunity in the L-Band domain is available
04

05

06

07

08

09

10

11

12

13

14

15

16

17
Time (GMT)

Figure 6: Instantaneous accessibility over Africa

for GEO Africa provided that the EIRP density
(average over one year) for different hours and does not exceed -52 dBW/Hz. This constraint
phase angles with an SZA below 60°. The classical comes from Meteosat8 (10°E) so as to avoid
‘LEO domain’ corresponds to phase angles below interferences at ground station level.
75°. This can be easily fulfilled with a data rate of
26 Mbps for an occupied bandwidth of 36
Aerosol specifics
MHz.
Aerosols represent a specific concern for
This frequency is also perfectly adapted to
visible observation over Africa, typically for
GEO Africa timeline with regard to the usual
sub-Sahel areas, since they affect image
scintillation concerns in L-Band : According to
exploitation due to attenuation, diffusion and
ITU-R P.531-9, ionospheric scintillation
reflection effects.
impacts inside the tropical belt become
significant after 19:00 local time; i.e. well after
the completion of GEO Africa observation
period.
Based on the available data rate, the image
downlink concept selected for GEO Africa is
the following:
• Continuous & permanent image downlink
during the observation period
• Fixed downlink antenna parallel to the
observation line of sight
• Semi global aperture of 12°

Figure 7: Example of aerosol attenuation: Resulting

optical transmission due to aerosol optical depth at
11:00 GMT at Spring equinox

The aerosol coverage therefore results in a

20% average reduction of the instantaneous
accessibility over Africa and the ‘observation
window’ for highly affected areas can be
reduced to a couple of hours per day.
Consequently, aerosol coverage has been
taken into consideration for GEO Africa
observation windows and operational tasking
concept.

Figure 8: Downlink coverage example for 5 different

observation directions (1 nadir + 4 extremes). The
large downlink aperture combined with the ground
segment architecture allows image data receiving
for any target location in Africa.

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 The flexible concept of operation
Elementary timeline The GEO Africa concept of operations
According to the selected downlink concept (CONOPS) significantly differs from the
and the step and stare imaging principle, classical operations principles of LEO
GEO Africa elementary timeline lasts less missions: The CONOPS takes advantage of
than 8 minutes. This duration accounts for the the satellite geostationary position, allowing
acquisition of a 300 x 300 km scene in all permanent Radio Frequency contact with the
spectral bands. ground segment, and the near real time
availability of meteorological data from
METEOSAT, refreshed every 15 minutes.
The CONOPS is based on a 2 phases daily
Visible & SWIR images
acquisition
cycle:
Satellite manœuvre < 400 s • The preparation phase which is
& tranquilization
Images compression completed at night and during which all
< 80 s
& downlink user requests are compiled to establish
< 380 s and optimize a preliminary collection plan
for the coming day. The automatic
elaboration of this preliminary collection
plan is based on requests priority rules
Elementary image cycle (max case) < 480 s
and meteorological forecasts.
• The ‘live’ operation phase extending over
Figure 9: Breakdown of GEO Africa elementary the whole observation period of the
timeline. Image data downlink is performed in real current day. During this phase, the
time and no additional latency has to be considered collection plan is automatically updated
every 30 minutes, considering the current
System architecture meteorological & aerosol situation and the
emergency requests which may be raised
The system architecture takes benefit of the during the day.
downlink and operations concept. It is based
on:
• A central mission and control centre
(MCC) in charge of satellite house
keeping and programming. The mission
establishment, including requests
collection and work plans elaboration, is
performed in a fully automated manner
• Regional Image Centres (RIC) dedicated
to image data reception, processing and
dissemination to regional end users. Each
RIC also collects local end users requests
and transmits them to the MCC.
Housekeeping Telemetry

Telecommands
Figure 11: GEO Africa tasking concept. The CONOPS
Im
ag
take benefit of the satellite geostationary position
e
me
tr y te l
e me
to allow dynamic update of the current work plan
Central Mission & e
te l tr y every 30 minutes.
Control Centre ge
I ma End
products

End products
Regional
end user
Three categories of requests can be
Regional
end user
considered: User defined requests, divided
Regional
end user End Regional into routine and emergency requests, and
Regional
Regional
products
image centre automatic meteo/aerosol opportunity requests
image centre
end user
for highly cloud/aerosol covered areas. The
latter type of requests are automatically
Figure 10: GEO Africa system architecture generated for areas with high cloud or
aerosol coverage statistics when an
observation opportunity is detected thanks to
the latest METEOSAT live update.
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User defined parameters typically include the
observation area, the spectral bands and the
expected date of collection or the deadline.
Optional parameters such as the expected
local time for acquisition and the repeat
frequency can also be defined.
Routine requests incorporated in the
preliminary collection plan are selected with
automatic ranking algorithms based on
criteria such as request deadline, meteo
success rate with regards to forecasts,
preferred local time, etc
The emergency requests which are
immediately taken into account during the live
operation phase are selected according to
criteria to be further refined by the operators
based on the system governance.
Figure 12 provides an illustration of GEO
Africa collection plan for a typical day,
including the preliminary collection plan
established during the night and the actual
plan completed at the end of the day.
Figure 12: Typical day illustration.
Up: Preliminary collection plan elaborated during the
preparation phase (routine requests only).
Bottom: Actual plan at the end of the day, including
routine requests (blue), emergency requests (red)
and meteo/aerosol (green) automatic requests
generated during the day.
GEO Africa performance
Sensing and capacities
GEO Africa essential performance are
summarized below.
GSD Nadir 25 m
Swath 300 x 300 km
Spectral bands 11 bands + 1 PAN
Signal to Noise Ratio 110
Modulation Transfer Function > 10%
Capacity 90 images/day
30 minutes non tasked
Revisit/Refresh rate
8 minutes tasked
Table 2: GEO Africa main performance
• The image quality performance
(Modulation Transfer Function and Signal
to Noise Ration) are similar to those
available for classical LEO mission so as
to allow reuse of existing Earth
observation applications.
• The system capacity, in terms of images
per day, combined with the large time
consistent swath of 300 x 300 km enables
global mapping of Africa in 4 to 5 days.
• The time resolution (revisit) is the
ultimate breakthrough of the system since
it provides 8 minutes revisit in tasked
mode and 30 minutes in non-tasked mode
(emergency requests) which correspond to
the elementary programming period
during the live operation phase
• The GSD variation over is according to
figure 13. This demonstrates the high
interest of geostationary observation
concept for Africa.
Figure 13: GSD variation with respect to nadir
resolution.
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 Beating the clouds
While GEO Africa is a permanent
complement to existing or planned LEO Lake Victoria area
systems, GEO Africa has a valuable High cloud
coverage statistics
advantage which is the ability to take every Malabo area
clear sky opportunity to perform image High cloud
coverage statistics
acquisition. This ability provides significant
benefits for Africa remote sensing in the
visible spectrum, particularly inside the inter-
tropical belt.
Cape Town area
High cloud
coverage variability
Opportunity 30’
LEO pass for GEO Africa

8:00 10:00 12:00 14:00 16:00 18:00 Figure 16: Areas selected for ‘beating the clouds’
advantage evaluation.
Figure 14: Advantage of the geo stationary observation
concept: GEO Africa can take any clear sky
opportunity of 30 minutes whereas a LEO satellite The following comparative statistics have
passes at a fixed local time and therefore depends been computed over the last 3 years on the
on the sky conditions at the time of pass. selected areas:
• Clear sky statistics during the
observation period
• Image acquisition success rate with
respect to cloud coverage
These statistics have been calculated for a
morning pass LEO satellite with a 5 days
revisit and for a 30 minutes observation
opportunity during the whole daylight period
(GEO Africa).

Comparative Lake Malabo Cape

statistics Victoria island Town

Clear sky statistics

LEO satellite 22% 12% 47%
GEO Africa 29% 19% 48%
Figure 15: Totally cloud free statistics over Africa for Success rate
the year 2006 (%of time). The figure clearly
illustrates the important cloud coverage statistics LEO satellite 5% 3% 9%
inside the inter-tropical belt and a worst case in the
GEO Africa 57% 46% 72%
lake Victoria area.
Table 3: Cloud coverage impacts comparative statistics
These advantages have been quantified in for GEO Africa and a LEO satellite with a 5 days
collaboration with METEO FRANCE for 3 revisit.
typical African areas of 300 x 300 km:
• 2 areas with high cloud coverage These results show that the cloud coverage
statistics, respectively over Lake impacts are reduced by a factor close to 16
Victoria (worst statistics) and Malabo for the highly affected equatorial areas and 8
island area in the Gulf of Guinea for high variability areas.
• 1 area with high cloud coverage
variability located in the vicinity of
Cape Town
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 CONCLUSION

Based on a new observation concept, GEO

Africa extends the classical Optical Earth
Observation domain regarding:
• The revisit/time resolution and tasking
flexibility since GEO Africa grants
permanent daylight access over Africa
• Super spectral applications thanks to 10
narrow bands
• The swath dimension which allows
regional applications over very large time
consistent areas of 300 x 300 km and
rapid African continent mapping.
• Selectable local time and possibility to
perform observations of the same area at
different times of day, enabling a new
range of applications to be deployed
• Ability to surpass the problem of cloud
obstructions, especially over highly cloud
covered African areas for which visible
imagery was up to now rarely available.

GEO Africa therefore enables the reuse of

traditional remote sensing applications,
inherited from the standard LEO observation
missions, but also provides the opportunity to
develop new thematic applications in this
extended domain.