A concept for a low cost dedicated instrastructure for the monitoring of tropical forests

A concept for a low cost dedicated instrastructure for the monitoring of tropical forests

Looyen, W.J.
Algra, T.
de Brouwer, M.G.A.

National Aerospace Laboratory NLR

1996-08-22

Effective global forest monitoring can be achieved by means of Earth Observation techniques. The most promising technique in this respect is the synthetic aperture radar (SAR) technique. Due to the high percentage of cloud cover in tropical and temperate regions SAR offers excellent opportunities to monitor the forests. Requirement studies in the past have discovered that requirements from users focus on five aspects: the availability of data, the accessibility of data, the affordability of data, the timeliness of data and thematic aspects. On the basis of these requirement aspects a concept was developed which emphasises an end-to-end small space mission approach. This approach is characterised by a complete integration of the groundand space segment, rather than treating them separately. The concept is based on two key-elements: decentralised, low-cost reception and processing capabilities and a low-frequency SAR. This paper presents the initial concept, and its elements, based on work performed within the National Space Technology Programme.

http://resolver.tudelft.nl/uuid:f91c11b6-2613-4c84-9205-f47f092f1af1

Nationaal Lucht- en Ruimtevaartlaboratorium

Campus only

NLR Technical Publication TP 96518 L

Aerospace Engineering Reports

report

(c)1996 National Aerospace Laboratory NLR