A Concept for a Regional Coastal Zone Mission

Recently, applicational and technological studies have been performed by a group of scientists and industry, led by DLR, basing on experiences with ocean-colour sensor MOS-IRS. The result is a new low-cost mission concept with special emphasis on coastal-zone remote sensing, which will be able to fill an imported gap in Earth observation data, i.e. to detect the strongly needed data for a better understanding of the rapid changes of coastal areas and to provide a tool for monitoring catastrophical hazards. The proposed low-budget mission ECOMON (Regional Ecological Research and Monitoring) will provide visible to the thermal infrared data with relatively high spectral (1.4 nm) and spatial resolution (100 m). The VIS–SWIR–TIR spectral region will be covered by 16 selectable channels in the visible, four channels in the SWIR, and one in the TIR. The swath width will be 400 km and a off-nadir tilting possibility ensures a high repetition rate of two days (for latitudes > 30°). Using mainly compact off-the-shelf technology and carrying this payload on a mini-satellite can ensure a low-budget mission with adequate performance for coastal zone observation.