brazil's remote sensing program

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Brazils Remote Sensing Program

Brian Shiro

Department of Space Studies, University of North Dakota, Grand Forks, ND 58202, USA

October 17, 2008

Introduction

Despite facing challenges as a developing country, Brazil has managed to grow an

effective remote sensing capability through both unilateral and cooperative programs. It also

possesses a competitive domestic launch capability, which gives Brazil both a measure of

autonomy and leverage to cooperate with other partners. This report focuses primarily on

Brazils civil land remote sensing and related space activities.

With a land area of 8.5 million km2 and a population of 187 million and Brazil is the

largest and most populous country in South America and fifth largest and fifth most populous in

the world. Brazil is home to more than 60% of the Amazon Rainforest, which comprises 40% of

the worlds remaining tropical rain forests. This makes Brazil the most biodiverse country on the

planet. The Amazon is estimated to hold around 90-140 billions tons of carbon, but when forests

are cut down some of this storage capacity is lost, resulting in millions of tons of emissions

annually (Butler 2006). Taking this into account, Brazil is the fourth largest emitter of

greenhouse gases after China, the United States, and Indonesia.

Brazil is South Americas leading economic power with vast natural resources and labor

pool. However, Brazil comes second only to Bangladesh in unevenness of wealth distribution,

leading to great disparities between rich and the poor. Annual per capita GDP is only $8,402

(compare to $41,890 in US). 60% of the people live in poverty with 12% earning less than $1

per day (UNDP 2007). An estimated 32 million people go hungry and 25,000 work under

conditions of slavery. Government-subsidized agriculture and colonization programs encouragethe destruction of the Amazon rainforest by both commercial interests (~70%) and subsistence

farmers (~30%).

The Brazilian government is faced with the challenging task of balancing the demands of

economic development with environmental protection. Brazil wants to resolve environmental

issues while enhancing agricultural production and development of natural resources (Barbosa


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and Ceballos 1995). The regions geopolitical position, size and low population density have

meant that it has long been seen as strategically vulnerable and economically underutilized by

Brazils federal planners (Kirby et al. 2006). In recent years, deforestation in the Brazilian

Amazon has increasingly moved in step with soy and cattle prices (Butler 2008). The rate in

2008 was nearly triple that in 2007, and the Brazilian government has pledged to reduce

deforestation to zero by 2015 (Butler 2008). Remote Sensing is a vital tool Brazil needs to

resolve environmental issues, enhance agricultural production, and develop natural resources.

History of Brazils Space Program

Brazils government has made space development a priority despite episodic political and

economic turmoil. After nearly 50 years of investment in space, Brazil now boasts one of the

most successful space programs of any developing country. Just a few days after Yuri Gagarin

visited Brazil in 1961, the country established the its first space commission called GOCNAE

(Group for the Organization of the National Space Activities Commission), which was later

renamed CNAE (National Commission of Space Activities) in 1963 and COBAE (Brazilian

Commission of Space Activities) in 1971 (Filho 1995). During this early phase of Brazils space

development, it focused on intense recruiting and training of talented professionals to carry out

theoretical and experimental investigations, mainly in the fields of space and atmospheric

sciences (Ceballos 1995). By the mid- to late-1960s, Brazil had begun its first remote sensing

and meteorology programs using data provided from other countries, mostly the United States.

The National Institute of Space Research (INPE) was created in 1971 with a mission to

promote and perform scientific research and technological development in the fields of space

sciences, atmosphere sciences, space applications, meteorology, and space engineering. Brazil

started its remote sensing program in earnest after installing a Landsat ground station at Cuiab

in 1972. The station was only the third Landsat ground station in existence at the time after US

and Canada and was the first on in Latin America (Filho 1995).

In 1979, Brazil began its first major space program to achieve independent satellite

development, construction, and launch abilities through the MECB program (Brazilian Complete

Space Mission). The program has been an overall success despite economic downturns and three

rocket failures (Duro 2004; Fonseca and Bainum 2006). Brazil developed the highly successful

SCD series of satellites, the VLS launch vehicle, and the Alcntara Launch Center, which has


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been unpopular with local residents who were forced off their land so it could be built (Moffett 9

October 2008).

After 21 years under a military regime, Brazil ushered in a civil government in 1985.

One of the first acts of the new governments Science and Technology Minister was to consider a

Chinese proposal for cooperation in a remote sensing program. Sensing an uncertain future for

Landsat and MODIS, Brazil signed its first agreement with China in 1988 (Filho 1997). The

CBERS program has persisted for two decades and now has three satellites in orbit. The

partnership is widely regarded as one of the best examples of an enduring international

cooperation leading to the successful development, launch, and operation of a land remote

sensing satellite system (Bailey et al. 2001). In 1994, Brazil created its first fully civil space

institution the Brazilian Space Agency (AEB), which united Brazils various space activities

including INPE under one umbrella (Filho 1995). Since then, Brazil has opened up its

cooperation with many more countries.

Brazils launch capabilities can be traced back to its Sonda sounding rocket program,

which boasts more than 60 successful launches from 1965 to the present (Astronautica 2008).

Additionally, Brazil has flown over 100 scientific balloon flights since 1969 (Corra et al. 2002).

Brazils four-stage Satellite Launch Vehicle (VLS-1) can carry 100-350 kg payloads to 250-1000

km orbits (Duro 2004). The VLS-1 suffered launch failures in 1997, 1999, and 2003 (AP

2003). The 2003 accident killed 21 people and destroyed most of the Alcntara launch facility

(Johnson and Almeida 2008).

Alcntaras location just 2.3 degrees south of the equator allows for a payload advantage

of 13% compared to Cape Canaveral and 31% relative to Baikonur for equatorial orbits, and its

proximity to the ocean makes it ideal for launchings to polar orbit with great fuel savings (Duro

2004). This has led to a great deal of interest in the location as a prime launch site. With the

help of Russia and Germany, Brazil scaled back its rocket design to two stages with a maximum

of 250 km orbit as the Brazilian Exploration Vehicle (VSB) and in 2004 finally achieved its first

successful orbital launch of the VSB-30 (AP 2004). Brazil reportedly has plans to sell fifteen of

the VSB rockets to Europe as part of its plan to commercialize its launch program (AP 2004).

Brazil and Ukraine signed agreement in 2002 to develop a commercial Cyclone-4 launch vehicle,

and work began in 2007 (Filho 2005). Brazil and Russia signed agreement in 2008 to jointly

develop launch vehicle based on Russias Angara liquid fuel engine (RIA_Novosti 2008).


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Satellite Status NSSDC ID Launch Date

(vehicle; location)

Mass

(kg)

Orbit (perigee, apogee,

inclination, period)

Sensor Spectral Bands

(m)

Spatial

Res. (m)

Swath

(km)

Revisit

(days)

SCD-1 F 1993-009B 1993-02-09Pegasus; KSC, USA

115 723.4 km, 785.1 km25.0, 99.8 min

ground DCP data relay

SCD-2 A 1998-060A 1998-10-23Pegasus; KSC, USA

115 742.7 km, 768.1 km25.0, 99.8 min

ground DCP data relay

ORCAS

FOTSAT

or PHOTOEX

0.5577

0.63000.7150

0.7240

PLASMEX

SACI-1 F 1999-057B 1999-10-14

LM4B; Taiyuan, China

60 726.5 km, 739.4 km

98.7, 99.3 min

MAGNEX

CCD

(steerable 32 off nadir)

0.450.52 (B)

0.520.59( G)0.630.69 (R)

0.770.89 (NIR)

0.510.73 (PAN)

20 113 26 (3)

IRMSS 0.501.10 (PAN)

1.551.75 (SWIR)

2.082.35 (SWIR)

10.412.5 (TIR)

80

80

80

160

120 26

CBERS-1

(Zi Yuan 1)

F 1999-057A 1999-10-14


1540 779.6 km, 788.6 km

98.2, 100.4 min

WFI 0.630.69 (R)0.760.90 (NIR)

260 885 3-5

Aqua

(EOS-PM1)

F 2002-022A 2002-05-04

Delta II; Vandenberg, USA

3117 709.0 km, 710.4 km

98.2, 98.8 min

HSB 150.000 GHz

183.310 GHz

183.310 GHz

183.310 GHz

13500 1650

CCD

(steerable 32 off nadir)

0.450.52 (B)

0.520.59( G)0.630.69 (R)

0.770.89 (NIR)

0.510.73 (PAN)

20 113 26 (3)

IRMSS 0.501.10 (PAN)

1.551.75 (SWIR)2.082.35 (SWIR)

10.412.5 (TIR)

80

8080

160

120 26

CBERS-2

(Zi Yuan 2)

A 2003-049A 2003-10-21


1600 779.9 km, 782.2 km

98.3, 100.3 min

WFI 0.630.69 (R)0.760.90 (NIR)

260 885 3-5

CCD BG

R

NIR

PAN

20 113

HRC PAN 2.5 27

CBERS-2B(Zi Yuan 2B)

A 2007-042A 2007-09-19LM4B; Taiyuan, China

1500 780.0 km, 781.5 km98.5, 100.3 min

WFI R

NIR

260 890

Table 1: Brazils Active (A) and Former (F) Remote Sensing Satellites and Sensors (Lambrigtsen and Calheiros 2003; N2YO 2008; NASA 2008)


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Satellites and Sensors

Brazil has launched six remote sensing satellites and has had a sensor flown on a NASA

satellite. Two are in equatorial orbits, and four are in polar orbits. Three of the satellites are

active today (SCD-2, CBERS-2, CBERS-2B). Table 1 summarizes the main aspects of Brazils

current and former satellites and sensors.

The SCD (Satlite de Coleta de Dado) satellites are data-collecting satellites, meaning

they only receive and relay data. There have no active cameras or sensors. Instead, they collect

meteorological and environmental data from over 600 remote data collection platforms (PCD)

located throughout the country (Fonseca and Bainum 2006). The data is used for many

environmental monitoring applications such as weather forecasting, flood monitoring, and

air/water quality control. SCD-1 and SCD-2 launched in 1993 and 1998 from US Pegasus

rockets since the Brazilian-made VLS rockets were not yet ready (Filho 1995). The SCD

satellites were only meant to last one year, but SCD-1 operated for 13 years, and SCD-2 is still

working after a decade of operation. The SCD satellites were originally developed as part of the

MECB program to demonstrate technology, but they have become indispensable to Brazil. The

newer CBERS satellites also relay PCD data, so when SCD-2 dies, Brazil will not lose its

important ground data. Brazil may launch additional SCD satellites in the future.

INPE also developed a series of small, low-cost microsatellites through the SACI series

of satellites. Small satellites are a particularly good investment for a developing country since

they can provide great benefit with relatively little cost (Molette and Alarcon 1996). The

modular bus of SACI gave it flexibility to host different payloads, which consisted of upper

atmosphere and magnetosphere monitoring experiments (Neri et al. 1996; Takahashi et al. 2000).

SACI-1 was launched in 1999 along with CBERS-1, but it failed soon after achieving orbit.

After SACI-2 was lost in the 1999 VLS rocket failure (Reuters 1999), Brazil abandoned the

SACI program (Khalip 1999).

Two other past remote sensing projects in Brazil included HSB and SATEC. The

Humidity Sounder for Brazil (HSB) was a 4-channel microwave sounder contributed by Brazil to

the NASA Aqua satellite. It measured atmospheric humidity profiles, even through clouds.

Aqua launched in May 2002, and HSB was successful until it failed in February 2003

(Lambrigtsen and Calheiros 2003). Like SACI, SATEC was a low-cost microsatellite, but it was

destroyed along with UNOSAT 1 in the 2003 VLS-1 launch failure (Almeida et al. 2006).


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Brazil's most successful remote sensing endeavor to date is the joint China-Brazil Earth

Resources Satellite (CBERS) program. The joint China-Brazil program began in the mid-1980s

when Landsat commercialization left the future of that data source in doubt. The two countries

decided to pool their resources and produce a series of remote sensing satellites. Their first

intergovernmental protocol in 1988 laid the ground rules for the partnership. It specified that the

CBERS-1 and 2 development, spending, and operations would be split 70/30 between China and

Brazil with both both satellites launched from Chinas Taiyuan Satellite Launching Center (Filho

1997; Lino et al. 2000). The subsequent 2002 agreement similarly set up the rules for the next

generation CBERS-3 and 4 satellites, in which China and Brazil will split everything equally,

including the launches with one launch from Brazil and one from China. (Zhao 2005). These

and other agreements define the cooperation between Brazils INPE and Chinas CAST (Chinese

Academy of Space Technology).

Three CBERS satellites have launched so far. CBERS-1 launched in 1999 and died in

2004. CBERS-2 launched in 2003 and is nearing the end of its life now due to power problems.

Its onboard data recorder and multispectral sensor (MSS) are no longer operational due to power

limitations (USGS_and_NASA 2007). CBERS-2B launched in 2007 to replace the ailing

CBERS-2 while the next generation satellites are being designed and constructed. Future

satellites are planned starting with CBERS-3 in 2009. CBERS-4 will launch from Brazil in

2012. China and Brazil are also exploring the feasibility of a joint geostationary meteorological

satellite and a telecommunications satellite based on the CBERS satellite bus.

The current generation CBERS satellites have three types of sensors: a wide field imager

(WFI) with 260 m resolution and 890 km swath width, a high-resolution 4-band CCD imager

with 20 m resolution and 120 km swath width (also is steerable off nadir), and a multispectral

sensor (MSS). The revisit time is 26 days for the CCD and 3 days for the WFI. Figure 1

illustrates the spectral bands of each sensor on the CBERS satellites. The capabilities of CBERS

are very similar to the Landsat satellites, and with the looming failure of Landsats 5 and 7 there

will be a gap in the 30+ year record of continuous global coverage by that program (Goetz 2007).

A joint USGS-NASA team recently reviewed the alternatives to Landsat and concluded that

CBERS, while not perfect, is one of the best suited alternatives to fill the gap in Landsat

coverage (USGS_and_NASA 2007). In fact, there is now a test CBERS-2B data downlink

undergoing evaluation at the USGS EROS Datacenter.


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Figure 1: CBERS sensors comparison (red=developed by China, green=developed by Brazil)

Ground Facilities & Product Dissemination

CBERS satellite operations are shared by Brazil and China according to a schedule

depending on the geographic location of the satellites. Brazil handles the tracking, telemetry,

and control (TT&C) of its remote sensing satellites through the main Satellite Control Center at

CPTEC (Centro de Previso de Tempo e Estudos Climticos) in So Paulo and two ground

stations at Cuiab and Alcntara (Orlando and Kuga 2001). China independently performs

CBERS TT&C from its CRESDA (China Centre for Resources Satellite Data and Application)

and three RSGS (Remote Sensing Satellite Ground Receiving Station) ground stations (Huadong

CBERS-1,2

CBERS-2B

CBERS-3,4


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and Changlin 2005; Tominaga and Ferreira 2008). Additional ground stations are currently

located in the United States (EROS), Spain, and South Africa, and other sites are under

consideration (Figure 2).

.Figure 2: Current (solid) and planned (dashed) CBERS ground stations

CBERS is fast becoming the most easily accessible Landsat alternative. Since June 2004,

INPE has freely distributed fully resolution CBERS images to registered users via its website at

http://www.dgi.inpe.br/CDSR/. INPE delivers an average of 650 downloads of CBERS data

every day and served 15 thousand users from June 2004 to September 2008 (INPE 2008). This

makes Brazil the largest distributor of satellite images in the world. Internet downloads of

images are cost free, and products shipped on CD have a nominal cost to cover the media and

shipping. Latin American countries get data from the Cuiab ground station, and African users

get data from ground stations in Spain and South Africa.

Applications

The joint China-Brazil CBERS program has many applications in China and Brazil

including agriculture, forestry, water conservation, land resources, desertification, city planning,

environment protection, natural hazard monitoring (Haijiang et al. ; Qiao et al. 2008). However,

INPE ingests remote sensing data from many earth observation satellites in addition to CBERS.

This includes its own PCD data from SCD satellites, Landsat, NOAAs GOES and POES, ESAs


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Meteosat Second Generation (MSG), NASAs Aqua and Terra, and some high resolution

imagery such as SPOT. This data is then used to generate products with a number of

applications related to weather, climate, health, agriculture, fires, and natural disasters. The

central internet portal for these products is INPEs Satellite Division and Environmental Systems

(DSA) website at http://satelite.cptec.inpe.br/.

INPE has carried out annual Amazon deforestation monitoring via PRODES (Project

Brazilian Amazonian Forest Monitoring by Satellites) since 1988 using Landsat TM and CBERS

data (Kirby et al. 2006). More recently in 2008, INPE began a new near-real time deforestation

monitoring program called DETER (Real Time Deforestation Monitoring System) using MODIS

data to provide 15-day alerts of newly deforested areas. Additionally, INPE is considering

complementing MODIS data with SAR data in the future to remove the current limitations

imposed by cloud cover (Mesquita et al. 2008).

The Future

With three decades of autonomous and collaborative development of remote sensing

capabilities, Brazil has positioned itself well to innovate and lead with monitoring programs in

the future. Figure 3 shows a timeline of Brazils ambitious plans to launch satellites with

increasing higher resolution and shorter revisit times. The next decade should be exciting for

Brazil's remote sensing program.

Figure 3: Brazils planned remote sensing satellites over the next decade


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Brazil has developed a generic earth observation satellite bus called the Multimission

Platform (MMP) that can carry up to 300 kg payloads in either polar or equatorial orbit

(Carvalho et al. 2004). Many of Brazils upcoming missions will use this platform. Amaznia

and MAPSAR grew out of the MECB program and are now collaborative projects with the UK

and Germany, respectively. The Amaznia satellites will provide high resolution images over a

large 780 km swath with a short revisit time of only 5 days (INPE 2008). The MAPSAR (Multi-

Application Purpose SAR) satellites will provide L-band synthetic aperture radar ability with a

host of applications to forestry, cartography, and disaster management (Schrder et al. 2005).

Brazil also plans to contribute a satellite built using the MMP bus to the Global Precipitation

Mission (GPM) constellation in order to provide global precipitation estimates at 3-hour intervals

with spatial resolution of 25 km (AEB 2005). The Lattes satellites will also use the MMP bus

and will monitor space weather.

In addition to Brazils two major remote sensing programs CBERS and MMP, it also has

a thriving scientific microsatellite development plan. Some of the satellites under development

include: MIRAX, an X-ray astronomy mission slated for a 2008 launch in collaboration with

USA, Germany, and the Netherlands (Braga et al. 2004); EQUARS, for monitoring dynamic

photochemical processes in the upper atmosphere slated for a 2009 launch in collaboration with

China, Japan, USA, and Canada; and MCE, which is a proposed 3-satellite constellation for

space weather monitoring in collaboration with Russia and Ukraine (Chamon and Carvalho

2006); and a university satellite called ITASAT {INPE 2007}. Another long-standing project

that has persisted since 1998 is the SABIA3 (Argentine-Brazilian Satellite providing Information

on Water, Agriculture, and Environment) satellite developed with Argentina (Romero 2004).

Conclusion

Brazil's space program has succeeded in developing its own satellites and all related

facilities required to design, build, launch, control, and maintain them. The CBERS program in

particular is a major international cooperation success story due to over 20 years of trust-building

between Brazil and China, despite cultural, language, time zone and other difficulties. Brazil has

a very open data-sharing policy that is revolutionizing the industry. Its ambitious plans to reduce

deforestation to zero by 2015 will depend upon improved remote sensing information gathered

by MMP satellites built with many international partners.


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