Overview of GCOM

ADEOS II was launched on Dec., 2002. However, after about 10 months operation, it has lost most of its power due to the solar paddle failure. As a follow on of ADEOS II mission, JAXA is now planning GCOM mission which is composed of a series of satellites. They are now called GCOM-W and GCOM-C satellites. Both satellites are composed of 3 satellites with 5 year lifetime. Hence, 13 years of continuous observation can be assured with 1 year overlaps. The first satellite of GCOM-W was launched on 18, May, 2012 while the first one of GCOM-C will be launched in fiscal 2015. GCOM-W1 carries AMSR-2 (AMSR F/O). AMSR-2 is very similar to AMSR on ADEOS II and AMSR-E on EOS-Aqua with some modifications. GCOM-C1 will carry SGLI (GLI F/O). The SGLI will be rather different from GLI. The main targets of SGLI are atmospheric aerosols, coastal zone and land. In order to measure aerosols over both ocean and land, it will have an near ultra violet channel, as well as polarization and bi-directional observation capability. For, coastal zone and land observation, the IFOV of SGLI for these targets will be around 250m. The instrument will be composed of several components. The shorter wavelength region will adopt push broom scanners, while long wave region will use a conventional whisk broom scanner. The orbit of GCOM-W will be A-train, while the orbit of GCOM-C will be similar to ADEOS II.