Open access to ALOS-2 radar satellite data?

The Japanese space and satellite program consist of two series of satellites – those used mainly for Earth observation and others for communication and positioning. There are 3 Earth Observation satellites in nominal phase, 3 in latter phase in operation and 3 more under development.

Greenhouse gases Observing SATellite-2 "IBUKI-2" (GOSAT-2) is measuring global CO₂ and CH₄ distribution of lower and upper atmosphere. Climate "SHIKISAI" (GCOM-C) satellite carries an optical sensor capable of multi-channel observation at wavelengths from near-UV to thermal infrared wavelengths (380nm to 12µm) to execute global, long-term observation of the Earth’s environment. Advanced Land Observing Satellite-2 "DAICHI-2" (ALOS-2) aims are to monitor disaster areas, cultivated areas and contribute to cartography.  

ALOS-2, which is specifically interesting for radar enthusiasts, is a follow-on mission from the ALOS “DAICHI”. Launched in 2006, ALOS was one of the largest Earth observation satellites ever developed and had 3 different sensors aboard: PRISM (Panchromatic Remote-sensing Instrument for Stereo Mapping) for digital elevation mapping, AVNIR-2 (Advanced Visible and Near Infrared Radiometer type 2) for precise land coverage observation and PALSAR (Phased Array type L-band Synthetic Aperture Radar) for day-and-night and all-weather land observation. ALOS operations were completed in 2011, after it had been operated for over 5 years.  

ALOS-2 was launched in 2014 and carries only radar instrument aboard. New optical satellite, ALOS-3, which will improve ground resolution by approx. three times from that of ALOS (2.5 to 0.8 m at nadir, wide-swath of 70 km at nadir), is already under development together with ALOS-4, which will take over from ALOS-2 to improve the functionality and performance.  

Let’s come back to present day. The state-of-the-art L-band Synthetic Aperture Radar (PALSAR-2) aboard ALOS-2 have enhanced performance compared to its predecessor. It has a right-and-left looking function and can acquire data in three different observation modes:

• Spotlight – spatial resolution 1x3 m, NESZ -24, swath 25 km. 
• Stripmap – spatial resolution 3-10 m, swath 30–70 km. Consist of Ultrafine (3 m), High sensitive (6 m) and Fine (10 m) modes. 
• ScanSAR – spatial resolution 60-100 m, swath 350–490 km.  

Emergency observations have highest priority for ALOS-2, but for systematic observations Basic Observation Scenario (BOS) has been developed. This ensures spatial and temporal consistency at global scales and adequate revisit frequency.  ALOS-2 BOS has separate plans for Japan and for the rest of the world, success rate for these acquisitions is 70–80 %.  

Basic observations over Japan are mostly undertaken in Stripmap Ultrafine mode and sea ice observations during winter in ScanSAR mode.

Stripmap Fine and ScanSAR modes are used for global BOS. There are several areas of interest, where ALOS-2 is putting more focus, for example:

• Wetlands and rapid deforestation regions in ScanSAR mode
• Crustal deformation regions both in Stripmap Fine and ScanSAR mode
• Polar regions both in Stripmap Fine and ScanSAR mode

In addition to those special regions global land areas are observed in Stripmap Fine mode at least once per year.

We made a little experiment to test, how many acquisitions we get over city of Tartu per year. Here are the results (platform for viewing and ordering data is here):

So, compared to Sentinel-1 radar-satellite, ALOS-2 acquisitions frequency is much lower over Europe, and its difficult to develop agriculture monitoring services only on this platform. For forestry and other environmental monitoring, where changes are not happing that often as in agriculture, ALOS-2 can be very useful due to its better spatial resolution than Sentinel-1. Being an L-band satellite it can also penetrate deeper into vegetation and provide information about the lower layers of the canopy. JAXA is already developing ALOS-4 with PALSAR-3 aboard, which will aim broader observation swath compared to the predecessor.