Educate Me | Satellite

Talks was held on the cooperation project of building an earth observation network by the joint efforts of China and Saudi Arabia on January 15 2010. The main intention of the project is to purchase China made satellite by Saudi Arabia for the purpose of monitoring flood and water logging as well as crude oil leakage over the territory of SA and its surrounding area and therefore.

Requirement Analysis

Monitoring of Flooding and Water logging

• The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia locates in the middle of Arabian Peninsular. The Persian Gulf lies to the northeast and Red Sea to its west. Most of its territory is in between 35E～55E and 16N～30N. Its western plateau is of Mediterranean Sea climate, while the eastern region is of sub-tropical desert climate. In recent years, because of the severed rainstorm in the western parts of Saudi Arabia, the flooding merged the urban streets, which resulted in landslide, building collapsed and cause human casualties and economical loss.
• Flooding and water logging were caused by severe rainstorm, which is of middle and small-scale weather system and is the main reason causing catastrophic weather. Nowadays, in terms of space technology and remote-sensing applications, Geostationary Metrological Satellite plays an important role in monitoring middle and small-scale weather disaster, and this role can be substituted by nothing. The Geostationary Metrological Satellite takes advantage of its stationary orbit to frequently acquire cloud images and make animation. Therefore, it can enhance the monitoring capability over middle & small scale weather system, and play an important role in typhoon and rainstorm forecasting.
• In order to compensate the relatively lower resolution of stationary orbit metrological satellite (normally around 1 km for visible and about 5km for inferred), Low Earth Orbit Metrological Satellite equipped with mid-resolution spectrometer can be used to improve the resolution to about 250 m. And moreover, the swath width of the low earth orbit satellite is over 2845km, which can cover the whole territory of Saudi Arabia, and thus to enhance the ability of rainstorm forecasting and facilitate monitoring and assessment of disaster such as floods and water logging disaster.

Global Disk Image by Stationary Meteorological Satellite	Rain Storm Monitoring Image by Mid-resolution Imaging Spectrometer

Monitoring of Crude Oil Leakage

• Saudi Arabia is a country with rich petroleum resources, and is the world’s leading petroleum exporter. Ghawar Oil Field is the largest inland oil field, while the Safaniya Oil Field is the largest offshore one. Saudi Arabia is near the Red Sea, Persian Gulf and Arabian Gulf; moreover, oil pipelines are densely laid. Hence, it is urgently needed to have some means of round-the-clock, all weather oil spill monitoring, especially for oil leakage contamination in the Gulf Area.
• Oil spill on the ocean can be monitored by optical remote sensor. Oil contamination is be discovered by different sunlight reflection through visible and infrared channels, the target can be checked and identified by high contrast in narrow band in electromagnetic wave.
• The oil film reflected by green, red light band centered with 0.55μm and 0.645μm are the present the best. Therefore, it can be selected as best choice for ocean oil film monitoring band by high spectrum remote sensing. The mid-resolution spectrum imager with swath about 2845 Km can cover the whole SA territory by one track, realizing better earth surface environment monitoring.
• On April 20, 2010, oil spill occurred in Mexico Gulf after explosion and sunk of “Deepwater Horizon”. The contaminated area was correctly evaluated by mid-resolution spectrum imager MERSI of FY-3 over maritime space of Louisiana State near Mexico Gulf on April 29, 2010 by FY-3

The position of “Deepwater Horizon” explosion was detected by FY-3 mid-resolution spectrum imager

Oil Spill was monitored by FY-3 mid-resolution spectrum imager over Mexico Gulf

System Concept for Saudi Arabia Earth Observation Satellite

Geostationary Meteorological Satellite

Low Earth Orbit Optical Satellite

Orbit and Related Parameters

Daily coverage over Saudi Arabia in ascending and descending orbit with an altitude of 826km (Optical Payload)

Geostationary Meteorological Satellite System Concept

Satellite Configuration

The configuration of the satellite is a cylindrical body with double cylinders (inner and outer cylinders). The diameter of outer cylinders is 2.1m which serves as up and down solar array. The inner cylinder is the central supporting structure. The total height is 4.78m.

Main Specifications of the Scanning Radiometer

Block Diagram of the Scanning Radiometer

Main body of Scanning Radiometer		Temperature Control Circuit of Radiation Cooler		Secondary Power of Radiometer		TM&TC
	TC
		Signal Processor, VDM, CPU and other Electronic Equipment
	Signal					to Transmitter
	TM
		Scan Driving Circuit	TM & TC	Clock Signal Precision Sun Signal Time Sequence Signal

Data Transmission and Cloud Image Transponder

Main Specifications of Cloud image Date Transmitter

The Critical Specifications of the Platform

Flight Sequence of Launching

Satellite Configuration

The satellite is of modular design consisting two modules, service module and the payload module. The size of the whole satellite is
1420mm×1420mm×1200mm.

		Launching State Configuration
In-orbit Configuration

Main Type of Image Product and Quantitative Product

Composition of the Ground Operational System

Delivery Schedule