MACSAT-a near equatorial earth observation mission

MACSAT is a 200 kg mini-satellite, designed to provide 2.5 m ground sampling distance resolution imagery on a near equatorial orbit. The mission objective is to demonstrate the capability of medium high resolution remote sensing using a cost effective mini-satellite platform and a multi-channel linear push-broom electro-optical instrument. This program has unique advantages for monitoring the environmental changes and mitigating disasters over equatorial regions due to short revisit characteristics from the baseline circular orbit of 685 km of altitude and 7 degrees of inclination. MACSAT is optimized to accommodate the mission payload, Medium-sized Aperture Camera, which is a push-broom type camera with swath width of 20 km. The satellite has +/-30 degrees of tilting and 30 Mbps X-band downlink capability. This paper describes the overview of the MACSAT program, focusing on the key technical and operational aspects of the mission, and provides an update to the status of the mission as of October 2003.