ALOS Data Users Handbook

Section 2 ALOS Missiontrial fabrication and testing of the satellite bus itself together with preliminary designing of Earth observingsensors and trial fabrication and testing of Bread Board Model. By fiscal 1998, it confirmed the feasibility ofthe sensors and the satellite system, and in the same year it moved to the phase of large-scale development. Itexecuted the tasks of maintenance design as well as testing the Proto-Flight Model by launched in January2006.While development of the ALOS Satellite has been performed by JAXA, some components of the PhasedArray type L-band Synthetic Aperture Rader (PALSAR), one of the sensors to be loaded on ALOS, have beendeveloped under the responsibility of the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI) as a collaborativeproject with JAXA.Meantime, as for land surface facilities, in addition to those owned by Japanese domestic agencies, includingJAXA in particular, and METI (Earth Remote Sensing Data Analysis Center – ERSDAC), GeographicalSurvey Institute (GSI), Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries (MAFF), Ministry of the Environment(MOE), Japan Coast Guard (JCG), etc., the system to be established by the above Data Node Organizationswill be used for achievement of ALOS missions.DevelopmentPhaseSatelliteSystem1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005Phase-A Phase-B Phase-C&DConceptualstudyPreliminarydesignBasicdesignDetaileddesignEM (MTM, TTM)Sustaining designPFM2006LaunchOperationMissionInstrumentsConceptual studyBBMEM (MTM,TTM)PFM, FMBBM: Bread Board Model, EM: Engineering Model, MTM: Mechanical Test Model,TTM: Thermal Test Model, PFM: Proto Flight ModelFigure 2.3-1 ALOS Development Master Schedule2-4