Venezuelan Remote Sensing Satellite 2 - High Score Camera, Infrared Camera "Two Brothers"

The Venezuela Remote Sensing Satellite No. 1 that has been flying in space for five years, the most important load is the "three sisters" - two full-color multi-spectral cameras and a wide-format camera. Now they are going to "retire" with the satellite.

On October 9, Venezuela's Remote Sensing Satellite 2 was launched from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center. The "Three Sisters" ushered in the successor, equipped with the satellite's high-resolution camera and infrared camera "two brothers." The Science and Technology Daily reporter learned from their hometown, China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation, that although the number of cameras has been reduced, their skills have been upgraded and they are expected to complete their work better.

High score "big brother" sees more clearly

From a single point of view, the high-resolution camera on the Venezuelan Remote Sensing 2 satellite should be considered a big brother, the size of which is similar to that of a primary school student. Hu Yongli, director of the 508 high-scoring camera of the Fifth Academy, said that the resolution of the high-scoring camera is better than 1 meter, which is equivalent to the high-altitude satellite camera in China. Compared with the full-color multi-spectral camera on the Venezuelan Remote Sensing 1 satellite, its resolution has more than doubled and can be seen more clearly.

In the track of more than 600 kilometers, the high score "Big Brother" can not only clearly see the zebra crossing on the ground, but also distinguish between buses and cars, and open the "Yami-class" era of China's export of remote sensing satellites. At the same time, the high score "big brother" has a wider angle of view, and the imaging width is better than 31 kilometers. If you look at it, you can see the scene within the five rings of Beijing.

Infrared "little brother" has a special "glasses"

Compared to the high score "big brother", the volume is only equivalent to an infrared "little brother" of an A3 printer is a small one. However, its origins are not small. This is China's first infrared camera to be exported abroad. It is tailor-made and newly developed by the five institutes in combination with the climatic conditions of Venezuela, and it has given it many innovative technologies.

Zhang Zhenghui, director of the infrared camera of the 508 Institute of the Five Institutes, said that the infrared "little brother" can work all day, even in the night, can accurately identify the two targets with a temperature difference of 0.2 degrees Celsius. At the same time, the development team made a unique design called “split window”, which is equivalent to wearing a special “glasses” that can help it eliminate the influence of water vapor during observation, so as to “see” more accurately. The temperature of various ground objects accurately determines the thermal radiation state of urban buildings, sewage, oil pipelines, forest fires and other targets flowing into the river, and plays an important role in urban construction, land resources, and environmental protection. This is also the first time in China that this design has been applied to remote sensing loads on the ground.

"The two brothers" work together to show their talents

In order to make the infrared "little brother" better to display his skills, the development team equipped it with a Stirling refrigerator. The cooling efficiency of this chiller has nearly doubled compared to its baseline product. However, the micro-vibration generated by the operation of the refrigerator will have an impact on the image quality of the high score "big brother". To this end, the technicians have adopted a camera-to-satellite integrated design, which reduces the micro-vibration output of the chiller to a quarter of that of the same type to ensure that the "brothers" can work at the same time and the image quality is good.

The infrared "little brother" also has a short-wave infrared channel, which has the ability to "smoke smoke and fog" and "know cloud". It cooperates with the high score "big brother" to identify different spectral segments reflected by different states such as crops and soil. Information to help users to monitor the pests and diseases of a variety of crops, accurately determine the extent of crop damage, carry out crop water monitoring and growth monitoring analysis, and carry out crop yield statistics, etc., and jointly demonstrate in the field of agricultural survey.

After receiving the "three sisters" class, the "two brothers" will play an important role in the business areas of Venezuela's land resources survey, evaluation, dynamic monitoring and management, resource utilization, environmental disaster monitoring, agricultural survey and urban construction.