Fabrizio Battazza

COSMO-SkyMed mission status: Three out of four satellites in orbit

COSMO-SkyMed is a Dual-Use (Civilian and Defence) end-to-end Earth Observation System aimed at establishing a global service supplying provision of data, products and services relevant to a wide range of applications, such as Risk Management, Scientific and Commercial Applications and Defence Applications. The system consists of a constellation of four LEO mid-sized satellites, each equipped with a multimode high-resolution SAR operating at X-band. Three out of four COSMO-SkyMed satellites have been successfully launched, while the remaining satellite will be deployed within 2010. COSMO-1 and COSMO-2 completed their Commissioning phase to test, verify and qualify the overall System and from the 1st of August both satellites are in the operational phase. The third satellite is performing its commissioning and it is expected to enter in operation in the second half of 2009. In this paper will be presented the current status of the mission and future objectives.

One-day interferometry results with the COSMO-SkyMed constellation

COSMO-SkyMed is a Dual-Use (Civilian and Defence) End-to-End Earth Observation System aimed at establishing a global service supplying provision of data, products and services relevant to a wide range of applications, such as Risk Management, Scientific and Commercial Applications and Defence Applications. The system consists of a constellation of four LEO mid-sized satellites, each equipped with a multi-mode high-resolution SAR operating at X-band. Three out of four COSMO-SkyMed satellites have been successfully launched, while the remaining satellite will be deployed within 2010. The first two satellites have been launched in 2007 while COSMO-SkyMed-3 has been launched on October 25th 2008. Since its launch COSMO-SkyMed-3 has been put in an orbital position at 67,5° from COSMO-SkyMed-2, in the so-called “one-day interferometry configuration”. Since then COSMO-SkyMed-2 and COSMO-SkyMed-3 are providing a interferometric pairs for a wide range of applications.

SIMDEO: An integrated system for landfill detection and monitoring using EO data

The monitoring of landfills and the detection of illegal and uncontrolled dump sites is a central environmental issue in all developed countries and a critical problem particularly in the southern regions of Italy. The consequences of the persisting uncontrolled disposal of wastes are now manifest after the occurrence of numerous critical emergencies (e.g. Naples 2009 and 2010). Furthermore, the strong infiltration of mafia-type criminal organizations in the legal process of waste disposal has led to even more critical conditions. The number of illegal landfills in Italy is constantly increasing; the last estimate made in 2010 has listed more than 5000 not authorized contaminated areas covering 2000 hectares of surface but there is the suspicion that these figures are strongly underestimated. Very recently Italy has been also threatened by the European Commission with €56m fine for having violated the landfill directives in not following the appropriate waste treatment. This work aims at presenting a new synergic approach based on EO optical and SAR data for detecting illegal landfills and monitoring existing and known waste disposal sites.

Progress in the hyperspectral payload for PRISMA programme

The PRISMA (PRecursore IperSpettrale della Missione Applicativa) Programme is an ASI (Agenzia Spaziale Italiana) hyperspectral mission for Earth observation based on a mono-payload single satellite: an Italian Consortium is in charge to realize the mission; Selex ES has the full responsibility of the hyperspectral payload composed by a high spectral resolution spectrometer optically integrated with a medium resolution panchromatic camera. The optical design permits to cover the wavelength range from 400 to 2500 nm and it is based on high transmittance optical assemblies, including a reflective common telescope in Three-Mirror Anastigmat (TMA) configuration, a single slit aperture, a panchromatic camera (700-900 nm) and a spectrometer having two channels (VNIR and SWIR), each one using an suitable prism configuration and spectrally separated by a beam splitter, conceived to minimize the number of optical elements. High performance MCT-based detectors represent the core of the instrument. To provide the required data quality for the entire mission lifetime (5 years), an accurate and stable calibration unit (radiometric and spectral) is integrated, for the in-flight instrument calibration. The thermal design has been based on a passive cooling system: a double stage radiator, suitable oriented and protected from unwanted heat fluxes, high performance heat pipes and an operational heaters network represent the solution adopted to achieve the required thermal stability.

COSMO-SkyMed mission: risk management applications over China, Myanmar and Haiti conducted during 2008

Between 2007 and 2008, Agenzia Spaziale Italiana (ASI) and Ministero della Difesa (Italian Ministry of Defence) launched three out of the four X-band SAR (synthetic aperture radar) satellites of the Constellation of Small Satellites for Mediterranean Basin Observation (COSMO-SkyMed) dual-use (civilian and defence) mission, dedicated to Earth observation. The results received from the utilization of the two operative satellites of the constellation reveal the significant achievement of the X-band SAR sensor and the importance of a fast response time in risk management applications. This article presents the qualitative analyses and results related to a set of risk management applications of the year 2008 by ASI and e-GEOS pertaining to China, Myanmar and Haiti.

Optical and SAR data synergistic use for landfill detection and monitoring. The SIMDEO project: Methods, products and results

The monitoring of cataloged landfills and the detection of uncontrolled dump sites is becoming a crucial environmental issue in all European countries. Remote Sensing application has been demonstrated to be helpful in mitigating the problem of landfills monitoring and in the continuous surveillance of known waste disposal sites. In previous works [1][2][3], the suitability of EO data exploitation, coming from SAR and Optical sensors, has been tested to be an important key factor in providing valid information to the local stakeholders for the identification, classification and monitoring of contaminated sites using non-invasive methods. The present paper aims to describe the consolidated and validated results obtained in the framework of the SIMDEO project, co-funded by the Italian Space Agency (ASI) and Euro Soft srl (contract n. I/055/11/0), detailing the algorithms adopted and describing the output products validated using ground-truth data.

The PRISMA hyperspectral imaging spectrometer: detectors and front-end electronics

Two detectors, SWIR and VNIR, and relevant front-end electronics were developed in the frame of the PRISMA(Precursore Iperspettrale della Missione Applicativa) project, an hyperspectral instrument for the earth observation. The two detectors were of the MCT type and, in particular, the VNIR was realized by Sofradir by using the CZT(Cadmium Zinc Telluride substrate of the PV diodes) substrate removal to obtain the sensitivity in the visible spectral range. The use of the same ROIC permitted to design an unique front-end electronics. Two test campaigns were carried out: by Sofradir, only on the detectors, and by Selex ES, by using the PRISMA flight electronics. This latter tests demonstrated that was possible to obtain the same detector performance, with respect of those ones obtained by a ground setup, with a flight hardware in terms of noise, linearity and thermal stability.

SIGRI project: Results of the products validation process

The SIGRI (Sistema Integrato per la Gestione del Rischio Incendi) pilot project, funded by ASI (the Italian Space Agency), aims at developing an integrated system for the management of the wild fire events. The system provides satellite based products capable of assisting all the phases of the fire contrasting activities: prevision, detection, and damage assessment/recovering. The SIGRI project aims at implementing consolidated methodologies and/or developing innovative tools and methods for the analysis of remote sensing data and the extraction of information useful to the application. This paper concerns the final phase of the SIGRI project: test and validation of algorithms developed. The validation of the generated products is a very important phase through which the products potentiality is assessed and the algorithms can be calibrated. In this paper we will discuss the results of a preliminary validation process.