A New High Resolution Satellite Imagery Source – KOMPSAT-3 - Apollo Mapping
Posted on February 4th, 2014

A New High Resolution Satellite Imagery Source – KOMPSAT-3

The Apollo Mapping team is pleased to announce that we have added another high-resolution satellite to our product selection, KOMPSAT-3, and sales of this data will start immediately!

If you are not familiar with KOMPSAT-3, here is a summary of the key satellite specifications:

A 70-cm natural color sample image collected by KOMPSAT-3 on August 24, 2013 over Bagram Airfield. This imagery has been photo enhanced by Apollo Mapping. Additional samples of color 70-cm KOMPSAT-3 imagery can be found here.
  • Launch Date: May 17, 2012, 16:39 UTC
  • Spectral Bands:
    • Panchromatic
    • 4-band multispectral (blue, green, red and NIR)
  • Sensor Resolution:
    • At nadir – 70-cm panchromatic & 2.8-m multispectral
    • 20° off-nadir – 82-cm panchromatic & 3.28-m multispectral
    • 30° off-nadir – 1.02-m panchromatic & 4.08-m multispectral
    • 45° off-nadir – 2.11-m panchromatic & 8.44-m multispectral
  • Dynamic Range: 14-bits
  • Revisit Frequency: (at 40°N)
    • 1.4 days (< 45° off-nadir)
    • 4.1 days (< 20° off-nadir)
  • Mean Local Crossing Time: 13:30 local time (approximate; across lit side of Earth)
  • Footprint Width: 16 km (at nadir)
  • Maximum Collection Geometry:
    • Mono, strip mode – 16 km x 4,000 km (1 strip wide)
    • Mono, wide area mode – 48 km x 100 km (3 strips wide)
    • Stereo, single pass mode – 16 km x 200 km (2 pairs wide)
  • Daily Collection Capacity: 300,000 sq km
  • Georeferenced Horizontal Accuracy: 48.5-m CE90 (global average, dependent on terrain)

Having worked with sample images for the past several weeks, we are extremely impressed with the crispness of KOMPSAT-3 data and its color reproduction. We feel that KOMPSAT-3 separates itself from other high-resolution satellites in two key ways:

(1)  14-bit depth which is important for spectral analysis. With 14-bit depth data, KOMPSAT-3 has a maximum digital number (or pixel value) range of 16,384 units. Compared with the maximum digital number range of 4,096 for Pléiades 1 and then 2,048 for the other high-resolution satellites in orbit now, this is a significant advantage for you remote-sensing academic and professionals out there.

(2)  A 1:30 PM local collection time. All other high-resolution satellites collect imagery during the mid-morning, so an afternoon collection time can be an advantage in persistently cloudy areas like tropical islands. This is also an advantage for vegetation analysis as chlorophyll concentrations change though out the day; so coupling KOMPSAT-3 with imagery collected during the morning, can give researchers a more complete picture of plant health.

If you are interested in pricing, coverage and/or have any additional questions about KOMPSAT-3 data, please contact the Apollo Mapping sales team at sales@apollomapping.com or (303) 993-3863.

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