Space blog - Entries tagged as algeria

Algeria’s first satellite mission completed

Thursday, August 26. 2010

Alsat-1, the first satellite launched in the international Disaster Monitoring Constellation led by SSTL, has finally completed its mission for the Algerian Space Agency (ASAL) having exceeded its original 5-year design lifetime by 50% to a remarkable 7 years and 9 months.

Engineer working on Alsat-1

Launched in November 2002 into a 700km sun-synchronous orbit on board a Kosmos 3-M rocket from the Plesetsk Cosmodrome in Northern Russia, Alsat-1 was Algeria's first national satellite - as well as being the first Disaster Monitoring Constellation satellite, it was also the first SSTL spacecraft to carry SSTL's newly developed Slim 6 Line Scan Imager payload.

Alsat-1 launch preparations

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Posted by Robin Wolstenholme in In the news at 10:49 | Comments (0) | Trackbacks (0)

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Alsat-1 still going strong

Monday, December 15. 2008

Alsat-1, the first SSTL satellite of the Disaster Monitoring Constellation (DMC) and the catalyst of Algeria’s fledgling space programme, remains healthy and fully operational after its sixth year in orbit.

Alsat-1 image of Tunis

Now, having exceeded its original 5 year schedule, Alsat-1 is more than 12 months into extended mission. The satellite engineers say that this remarkable extension was mainly accomplished through careful battery management.

Alsat-1 was not only the first DMC satellite, but also the first spacecraft to carry a Line Scan Imager. As such, SSTL is particularly delighted about this recent achievement. Its tasks have included responding to forest fires in Algeria and contributing to worldwide disaster response under the International Charter: Space and Major Disasters.

The Earth-Observation (EO) satellite is still providing imagery to the Algerian CNTS team (Centre National des Techniques Spatiales of Algeria) on a regular basis, although at a reduced capacity in order to further extend the battery life.

Alsat-1 carries an optical imaging payload developed by SSTL to provide 32m ground resolution with an exceptionally wide swath width of over 640 km allowing it to image an unparalleled area in each pass. CNTS is distributing the data to other Algerian institutions, which are using it for pollution monitoring, cartography and petrology applications.

Posted by Robin Wolstenholme in Remote sensing at 16:30 | Comments (0) | Trackbacks (0)

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ALSAT-1 maps forest fires

Thursday, November 29. 2007

Algeria is celebrating the 5th birthday of its first satellite, ALSAT-1 this week.

Last summer, a heatwave struck Algeria bringing with it temperatures of up to 50 degrees Celsuis. This dryed out the North African landscape, leading to forest fires in several forests.

The Batna region, which has some of the most densely forested regions in Algeria, was one of the worst affected areas. In particular, places like Djebel Belezma and Beni Fedhla were stricken by severe conflagrations accented by sirocco winds blowing at more than 80 kph.

Fire damage in the Bliza area

The fire has destroyed a significant part of the forests in the Batna region. For example, only this summer, fires have destroyed over 8000 hectares in Djebel Kimmel and in the area of Arris.

Forest fires: astronomical figures

Algeria used the SSTL-built ALSAT-1 satellite in a study to monitor forest fires and evaluate the damage caused and assess the forests’ ability to regenerate.

Fire damage surrounding Tipaza

The location referenced (geospatial) images from Algeria’s own satellite were supplemented where required with additional Disaster Monitoring Constellation (DMC) data where required.

How satellite imaging is applied
The images were acquired from areas of interest are first pre-processed using the ENVI image processing software, these are then analysed and finely processed for later use. This results in cartographical (maps) that are easy to read with the human eye. The maps are then used to identify the various forest formations and the impact that this summer’s (2007) fires have had on them.
Both supervised classification and the vegetation index (NDVI) methods were used to determine the different forest formations and to deduct the fire impact on them. This methodology has allowed the Centre National des Techniques Spatiales (CNTS) to accurately assess the destruction of forest fires in the north of Algeria during this year’s (2007) campaign.

Posted by Robin Wolstenholme in In the news at 15:25 | Comments (0) | Trackbacks (0)

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