68 th International Astronautical Congress (IAC), Adelaide, Australia, 25-29 September 2017. Copyright ©2017 by the International Astronautical Federation (IAF). All rights reserved. IAC-17-F1.2.3 Page 1 of 4 IAC-17, B1,2,6,x39607 DESIGN CONSIDERATIONS FOR AN AQUATIC ECOSYSTEM IMAGING SPECTROMETER: RESULTS OF A CEOS FEASIBILITY STUDY) Arnold G. Dekker a , Peter Gege b , Nicole Pinnel b , Xavier Briottet c , Steef W.M. Peters d , Sindy Sterkx e , Kevin Turpie f , Claudia Giardino g , Elisabeth Botha a , Maycira Costa h , Martin Bergeron i , Nima Pahlevan f , Thomas Heege j , Andy Court k and Vittorio E. Brando l a* CSIRO, GPOBOX 1700, Canberra, ACT, Australia, arnoldgdekker@gmail.com b DLR, Earth Observation Center, Oberpfaffenhofen, 82234 Weßling, Germany, Nicole.pinnel@dlr.de ; peter.gege@dlr.de . c ONERA, BP 74025 - 2 avenue Edouard Belin, 31055 Toulouse France, xavier.briottet@onera.fr d Water Insight BV, Marijkeweg 22, 6709 PG Wageningen, The Netherlands, peters@waterinsight.nl e VITO NV, Remote Sensing Unit, Boeretang 200, 2400 Mol, Belgium, sindy.sterckx@vito.be f NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, 8800 Greenbelt Road, Greenbelt, MD 20771USA, Kevin.R.Turpie@nasa.gov g CNR-IREA, Via Bassini, 15 - 20133 Milan, Italy, giardino.c@irea.cnr.it h University of Victoria, Department of Geography, University of Victoria, PO Box 1700 STN CSC Victoria, BC V8W 2Y2, Canada, maycira@uvic.ca I Canadian Space Agency, 6767 Route de l'Aéroport, Saint-Hubert, QC J3Y 8Y9, Canada, martin.bergeron3@canada.ca j EOMAP GmbH & Co.KG, Schlosshof 4, 82229 Seefeld, Germany, heege@eomap.de k TNO, Stieltjesweg 1, 2628 CK Delft, The Netherlands, andy.court@tno.nl l CNR-ISAC, Via Fosso del Cavalier, 100 - 00133 Rome, Italy, v.brando@isac.cnr.it * Corresponding Author Abstract Many Earth observing sensors have been designed, built and launched with primary objectives of either terrestrial or ocean remote sensing applications. Often the data from these sensors are also used for freshwater, estuarine and coastal water quality observations and bathymetry and benthic mapping. However, such land and ocean specific sensors are not designed for these complex aquatic environments and consequently are not likely to perform as well as a dedicated sensor would. As a CEOS action, CSIRO and DLR have taken the lead on a feasibility assessment to determine the benefits and technological difficulties of designing an Earth observing satellite mission focused on the biogeochemistry of inland, estuarine, deltaic and near coastal waters as well as mapping macrophytes, macro-algae, sea grasses and coral reefs. These environments need higher spatial resolution than current and planned ocean colour sensors offer and need higher spectral resolution than current and planned land Earth observing sensors offer (with the exception of several R&D type imaging spectrometry satellite missions). The results indicate that a dedicated sensor of (non-oceanic) aquatic ecosystems could be a multispectral sensor with ~26 bands in the 380-780 nm wavelength range for retrieving the aquatic ecosystem variables as well as another 15 spectral bands between 360- 380 nm and 780-1400 nm for removing atmospheric and air-water interface effects. These requirements are very close to defining an imaging spectrometer with spectral bands between 360 and 1000 nm (suitable for Si based detectors), possibly augmented by a SWIR imaging spectrometer. In that case the spectral bands would ideally have 5 nm spacing and FWHM, although it may be necessary to go to 8 nm wide spectral bands (between 380 to 780nm where the fine spectral features occur -mainly due to photosynthetic or accessory pigments) to obtain enough signal to noise. The spatial resolution of such a global mapping mission would be between ~17 and ~33 m enabling imaging of the vast majority of water bodies (lakes, reservoirs, lagoons, estuaries etc.) large than 0.2 ha and ~25% of river reaches globally (at ~17 m resolution) whilst maintaining sufficient radiometric resolution. Keywords: (Earth observation, aquatic ecosystems, multispectral remote sensing, imaging spectrometry, optical sensor specifications, environmental applications) Acronyms/Abbreviations CEOS=Committee on Earth Observing Satellites. CSIRO=Commonwealth Industrial and Scientific brought to you by CORE View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk provided by Institute of Transport Research:Publications