Latest Advanced Land Observation Satellite Stories

The Christchurch, New Zealand earthquake that took place on February 22 has been illustrated in new radar imagery. The magnitude 6.3 tremor killed over 160 people and shattered a city reeling from a previous seismic event in September. Data downloaded from the Japanese Alos spacecraft mapped the way the ground deformed during the most recent quake. It shows clearly that the focus of the tremor was right under the city's south-eastern suburbs. The type of image is known as a synthetic aperture...

WASHINGTON, April 12 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- In a unique collaboration between national space agencies, the United States and Japan began combining elements of their satellite resources on Monday to increase a critical type of Earth observation data. The partnership will more than double the quantity of this data that is used to explore earthquake hazards, forest declines, and changing water resources in the Americas.This new partnership between NASA and the Japan Aerospace Exploration...

As rescue workers scramble to provide assistance to hundreds of thousands of people following Haiti's earthquake, Earth observation satellite data continues to provide updated views of the situation on the ground.Following the 7.0-magnitude earthquake that hit Haiti on January 12, international agencies requested satellite data of the area from the International Charter on 'Space and Major Disasters'.The Charter, an international initiative aimed at providing satellite data free of charge to...

Tropical forest loss accounts for an estimated 17% of global emissions of carbon dioxide. As part of a strategy to reduce these greenhouse gas fluxes to the atmosphere, the UNFCCC's Conference of the Parties 15 in Copenhagen is working to adopt a strategy for Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD) in the post-Kyoto climate treaty. For tropical nations to be effective in tracking and reporting their emissions reductions from forest management and conservation,...

Using satellite radar data and GPS measurements, Chinese researchers have explained the exceptional geological events leading to the 2008 Wenchuan Earthquake that killed nearly 90,000 people in China's Sichuan Province."One of the very fundamental issues for understanding an earthquake is to know how the rupture is distributed on the fault plane, which is directly related to the amount of ground shaking and the damage it could cause at the surface," said Dr Jianbao Sun of the...

CHARLOTTE, N.C., Feb. 11, 2009 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Goodrich Corporation (NYSE: GR) has been selected to provide optical subassemblies for a new space-based telescope as part of Japan's Advanced Satellite with New system ARchitecture for Observation (ASNARO) project. Work will be performed by Goodrich's ISR Systems team in Danbury, Conn. Under contract to NEC and NEC Toshiba Space Systems, Ltd. (NTSpace), Goodrich will design, fabricate, align and test the mirror assemblies...

More than 200 scientists from around the world have attended the weeklong POLinSAR 2009 workshop hosted at ESRIN, ESA's Earth Observation centre in Frascati, Italy. Discussions among the participants include new techniques for providing vital information on our planet that could help to combat global warming through carbon accounting, wetland preservation and improve climate models.Using the novel polarimetric mode of the PALSAR synthetic aperture radar (SAR) aboard Japan's ALOS satellite, Dr...

Based on a cooperative agreement, ESA has been delivering data from ALOS "“ Japan's four-ton Earth Observation satellite "“ to users across Europe and Africa since its launch three years ago. ESA's efforts have been recognized by the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency with an award of appreciation.Dr Yasushi Horikawa, Executive Director of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA), wrote to ESA to express appreciation for its "significant contribution over the last 8 years in the...

TOKYO -- Japan launched a rocket carrying an advanced land-observation satellite into space on Tuesday, in a boost for a space program that has strived to overcome a spotty record.A Japanese-built H-2A rocket was launched successfully from the Tanegashima Space Center in Kagoshima in southern Japan, said a spokeswoman for the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency(JAXA)."We've confirmed that the satellite has detached itself from the rocket. It's going well so far," the JAXA spokeswoman...