RazakSAT™ ground system consists of Mission Control Station (MCS) and Image Receiving and Processing Station (IRPS).
Pusat Angkasa Negara (PAN) or National Space Centre Ground Station of ANGKASA situated in Banting, Selangor will be the main MCS and IRPS for RazakSAT satellite imagery. The MCS will perform mission plan, command generation, telemetry receiving as well as archiving and analysis. IRPS will archive images together with attitude and ephemeris telemetry data for post processing and distribution.
The MCS plans and operates the entire space mission, including the configuration and scheduling of resources for both space and ground elements. It also monitors and commands the satellite. MCS consists of two subsystems: Antenna & RF subsystem and Telemetry & Commanding subsystem. The MCS uses S-band uplink for telecommands and S-band downlink for telemetry reception. MCS baseband and Telemetry & Commanding equipment for RazakSAT will be incorporated into ANGKASA’s antenna and RF facilities.
Image Receiving and Processing Station (IRPS) receives image data from the satellite via X-band link. IRPS can be categorized into three main subsystems which are Antenna & RF Subsystem (ARS), Receiving & Archiving Subsystem (RAS) and Search & Processing Subsystem (SPS).
The Antenna & RF Subsystem performs tasks like satellite tracking, receiving RazakSAT signals via X-band link, demodulating and bit synchronizing RazakSAT signals. Receiving & Archiving Subsystem will ingest the demodulated and bit-synchronized signals to the receiving and archiving server, records signal into disk arrays and perform real-time image display. The Search & Processing Subsystem will generate the image products and catalogues, manage image data and database, generates schedule for new imaging and provide web service for catalogue browsing.
Images will also be received by the Malaysian Ground Receiving Station (MGRS), Temerloh of Remote Sensing Malaysia which will carry out data distribution for RazakSAT images.
Sources:
M.Y. Norhan and H. Norhizam, “The Role of RazakSAT in Remote Sensing” GIS Development Magazine, Jun 2006, pp.26.
K. Nuril, A. Shamsul, O. Firdaus, “The Development of RazakSAT Ground System” MRSS 2008.
Source: Utusan Malaysia
Masalah teknikal: Pelancaran RazakSAT ditangguh
PUTRAJAYA 17 April - Pelancaran satelit RazakSAT yang dijadualkan pada Selasa ini di Kwajalein Atoll, Republik Kepulauan Marshall terpaksa ditangguhkan ekoran kerosakan teknikal pada kenderaan pelancarnya, Falcon 1.
Ketua Setiausaha Kementerian Sains, Teknologi dan Inovasi, Datuk Abdul Hanan Alang Endut berkata, syarikat Space Exploration Technology (SpaceX) yang bertanggungjawab melancarkan satelit itu mendapati data gegaran yang akan dialami oleh RazakSAT sekiranya dilancarkan tidak mampu ditampung oleh kenderaan pelancar tersebut.
”Walaupun kenderaan pelancar itu berjaya melalui ujian pembakaran statik semalam, SpaceX mendapati data gegaran yang dialami Falcon 1 adalah pada tahap yang kurang selamat untuk RazakSAT dilancarkan.
”Bagaimanapun, RazakSAT telah melalui kerja-kerja persiapan akhir untuk pelancaran dengan licin dan sempurna sejak beberapa minggu lalu,” katanya dalam kenyataan yang dikeluarkan di sini, hari ini.
Satelit penderiaan negara yang kedua itu akan ditempatkan dalam kedudukan Orbit Hampir Khatulistiwa (NEO) dengan kawalan misi di Ibu Pejabat SpaceX di Los Angeles.
Ia akan mengambil alih fungsi TiungSat-1 yang tamat tempoh penggunaannya beberapa tahun lalu dengan kelebihan merakamkan imej empat hingga tujuh kali dalam tempoh sehari.
Sehubungan itu, Abdul Hanan memberitahu, kerja-kerja teknikal yang perlu dilakukan kepada kenderaan pelancar tersebut dijangka mengambil masa kira-kira enam minggu.
”Tarikh pelancaran baru akan diumumkan sebaik sahaja Falcon 1 didapati sedia dan selamat untuk dilancarkan,” katanya.
Other Sources;
- Bernama News
- NST
RazakSAT’s Mission
The RazakSAT mission is to ensure the availability of satellite imaging for any part of Malaysia in order to fulfill the requirements of the local remote sensing user community. Malaysia has been dependent on remote sensing satellite imagery provided by other Satellite Operating Agencies (SOAs) that have been constrained by cloud and timeliness. To alleviate those constraints, RazakSAT will be uniquely placed in a Low Earth Near Equatorial Orbit (NEqO).
RazakSAT’s Orbit
At a nominal altitude of 685 km and 9° inclination orbit, it will provide an optimal number of 14 passes a day over Malaysia thereby increasing its imaging opportunity by over 3 times compared to a satellite orbiting the Earth in the more popular Sun-Synchronous Orbit (SSO). The NEqO enables RazakSAT to provide higher imaging opportunity for Malaysia and other countries that are situated in the near equatorial belt of 9° North and South of the Equator.
RazakSAT’s Payload
RazakSAT will carry the Medium-sized Aperture Camera (MAC) which is an electro-optical payload of a pushbroom type with 5 linear detectors (1 panchromatic, 4 multispectral). RazakSAT offers a Panchromatic band (510 - 730 nm) and 4 Multispectral Bands: Band 1: Blue (450 - 520 nm); Band 2: Green (520 - 600 nm); Band 3: Red (630 - 690 nm) and Band 4: Near-Infrared (760 - 890 nm). The spatial resolution of 2.5 m and 5 m for Panchromatic and Multispectral, respectively, covers a swath width of 20 km at the 685 km nominal altitude. Data is being quantized into 8 bits of 256 brightness values to represent information.
Source:
M.Y. Norhan and H. Norhizam, “The Role of RazakSAT in Remote Sensing” GIS Development Magazine, Jun 2006, pp.26.
