VRSS-1 is Venezuela′s first remote sensing satellite. The goal of the VRSS–1 mission is to provide resource studies high resolution land and vegetation observations to assess Venezuela′s soil and water resources, collect images to help urban planners, monitor illegal mining and drug activities, and strengthen national defense, support of disaster monitoring.
After launch, the VRSS-1 satellite was renamed in honor of Sebastián Francisco de Miranda (1750-1816), a Venezuelan revolutionary hero, known as ″Generalissimo″ Francisco de Miranda, who had planned the independence of the Spanish colonies in South America.
The satellite contains two different resolution cameras. The highest resolution ones have a resolution of 2.5 metres in pancromatic mode, and 10 metres in multispectral mode. The lower resolution cameras have a resolution of 16m. that provides 350 images a day.
It was built and launched by the China and the satellite is based on the CAST 2000 bus developed by the China Academy of Space Technology.
For more information: http://space.skyrocket.de/doc_sdat/vrss-1.htm
PMC (PAN and Multispectral Camera):
|
Imager type |
Pushbroom with TDI capability |
|
Spectral bands |
PAN: 0.45-0.90 µm |
|
GSD (Ground Sample Distance) at nadir |
PAN: 2.5 m |
|
Swath width at nadir |
~57 km |
|
Detector CCD |
Pan: 10µm x 10µm, pixels ?12,000 (single camera) |
|
Data quantization |
10 bit |
|
Instrument mass |
135 kg |
WMC (Wide-swath Multispectral Camera):
|
Imager type |
Pushbroom with TDI capability |
|
Spectral bands |
B1/blue: 0.45-0.52 µm |
|
GSD (Ground Sample Distance) at nadir |
16 m |
|
Swath width at nadir |
~370 km |
|
Detector |
CCD, 12,000 pixels of size 6.5 µm |
|
Optical system |
Refractive optical system, focal length = 270 mm |
|
Data quantization |
10 bit |
|
Instrument mass |
75 kg |
