CGMS-41 CNSA-04
Prepared by CNSA
Agenda Item: GPII.10
APPLICATION CAPABILITY ASSESSMENT OF THE CNSA SATELLITE
SYSTEMS AND FUTURE REQUIREMENT
Executive summary
China National Space Administration (CNSA) starts to
assess the application capability of CNSA Earth
observing system. This report gives a preliminary
summary after investigating different industries.
CGMS-41 CNSA-04
Application capability assessment of the CNSA satellite systems and future
requirement
1 INTRODUCTION
OSCAR, a tool of Observing Systems Capability Analysis and Review, is an
important part of the global integrated observing systems of WMO. China National
Space Administration (CNSA) starts to use OSCAR software to assess the observing
capability of its Earth observing system. AS the results of application-oriented, it is also
necessary to assess the application capability of CNSA Earth observing system. This
report gives the brief summary of our preliminary research at the start stage.
2 ASSESSMENT OF CURRENT APPLICATION CAPABILITY OF REMOTE
SENSING
By surveying and investigating with most administrations and ministries, the
dependence of satellite remotes sensing technology for each industry becomes more
and more important. Therefore, it is necessary for CNSA to assess and evaluate the
application capability of remote sensing from different industry. With an overall
consideration, CNSA could have a comprehensive EOS design and plan to better
serve each industry.
Currently, the remote sensing application in China is mainly used in land, natural
disaster monitoring and evaluation, macroscale resource and environment
investigation, land and resource protection, agriculture, and ecosystem environment.
The detailed information are as follow:
 Application of remote sensing for urban is using remote sensing technology to
process, extract, and analyze the information from urban dynamic change, heat
island, water resource, solid waste, air environment, vegetation coverage and so
on, then gradually forming the operational monitoring capability by remote
sensing for urban landscape dynamic change, land dynamic use, waste, heat
island.
 Application of remote sensing for surveying and mapping includes surveying and
mapping, map revision, gravity measure, satellite height measure, and navigation
and orientation.
 Application of remote sensing for meteorology includes weather forecast,
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disastrous weather monitoring, such as flood, storm, typhoon, drought, high
temperature, tornado, ice-snow disaster, heavy fog, lighting, etc.
 Application of remote sensing for ocean includes observations of ocean
dynamics, ocean sea-level, shallow water, water depth, ocean colour, ocean
pollution, sea-ice, etc.
 Application of remote sensing for water resource includes monitoring of flood and
drought; management and diversion of water resource; ecosystem protection;
management and construction of water conservancy project; planning and
improving of conservation of water and soil; water environment monitoring.

Application of remote sensing for disaster agriculture includes agriculture
resource investigation and monitoring, biomass evaluation, agriculture disaster
forecast, etc.
 Application of remote sensing for forestry includes disaster investigation and
monitoring;
ecosystem
environment
monitoring;
investigation,
evaluation,
planning of forest, natural reserve, wetland; desertification monitoring; evaluation
of ecosystem efficiency.
 Application of remote sensing for territorial resource includes basic geology
investigation; land resource investigation and monitoring; geologic hazard
monitoring and early warning, digital territory programme.
 Application of remote sensing for environment includes continuously dynamic
monitoring of environment; air quality monitoring; forecast of pollution trend;
water quality monitoring; solid waste monitoring; environment monitoring of large
construction project.
 Application of remote sensing for disaster reduction includes monitoring of flood,
drought, forest fire, snow disaster, earthquake, landslide, mud-rock flow, collapse;
plant pests disease control of crop and forest; monitoring and assessment of
natural disaster.

Application of remote sensing for ecosystem includes monitoring of land use;
land cover; ecosystem change of land, lake and rive, sea and ocean, urban;
protection of biological diversity; monitoring and research of global change.
3 CATEGORY OF REQUIREMENT OF EARTH OBSERVING
Although different industry has particular demands of remote sensing
technology, it still can be summarized into three categories.
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category
Purpose
Characteristics
I
Resource
high quantification measurements, identification capability,
investigation
and spatial resolution.
Dynamic monitoring
Short repetition time, wide coverage, easy information
II
extraction
III
Fast response
All-weather and all-day monitoring capability, Short repetition
time, wide coverage,
4 REQUIREMENT OF SATELLITE REMOTE SENSOR
After the conversion from application requirement to measurable parameters, it
finally needs to be decided the type of sensor and its corresponding characteristics
according to application task. With the analysis and filtration of all current satellite
remote sensors, the feature requirement in the application task can be summarized
as follow: observing mode, observing angle, spectral, temporal, spatial and
radiometric features, shown in figure 1.
requirement of sensor
characteristics
spectral
spatial
radiometric
calibration
observation
others
center
wavelength
GIFOV
radiometric
resolution
before launch
mode
consistency
FWHM
HIS
dynamic range
after launch
height
linear
SRF
PSF
SNR
stability
FOV
stray light
tolerance
LSF
RPM
Figure 1. framework of characteristics requirement of application-oriented remote sensor
5 FUTURE REQUIREMENTS OF REMOTE SENSING FOR APPLICATION
According to the urgent requirements of resource investigation, dynamic
monitoring, and fast response, CNSA sorts out major Earth measurable parameters
covering atmosphere, land, and ocean from 5 lays (retrievable parameters, measure
precision, spatial resolution, dynamic observing range, and application response),
and 3 phases (objective phase, R&D phase, and operational phase). There are
totally about 800 measurable parameters. Base on these 800 measurable
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parameters, CNSA is easily to estimate the future requirement of remote sensing for
application and hence to better organize its future plan of sensor design and launch.
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