BackForwardInstrument:  PANMUX 

Instrument details
Acronym PANMUX
Full name Panchromatic and Multispectral imager
Purpose High-resolution land and vegetation observation
Short description 4 channels in VIS and NIR (1 panchromatic)
Background Consolidated technology
Scanning Technique Pushbroom, swath 60 km, possible to be pointed within a field of regard of ± 500 km
Resolution 5 m (panchromatic channel), 10 m (narrow bandwidth channels)
Coverage / Cycle Global coverage in 52 days or 3 days by exploiting strategic pointing
Mass 263 kg Power 80 W Data Rate 240 Mbps

 

Providing Agency CAST
Instrument Maturity Backed by strong heritage
Utilization Period: 2013 to 2024
Last update: 2021-06-16
Detailed characteristics
Central wavelength Spectral interval SNR @ specified input spectral radiance
Low signal High signal
N/A (PAN) 0.51 - 0.85 µm 25 @ 18 W m-2 sr-1 µm-1 48 @ 244 W m-2 sr-1 µm-1
0.555 µm 0.52 - 0.59 µm 26 @ 28 W m-2 sr-1 µm-1 47 @ 313 W m-2 sr-1 µm-1
0.660 µm 0.63 - 0.69 µm 21 @ 18 W m-2 sr-1 µm-1 45 @ 263 W m-2 sr-1 µm-1
0.830 µm 0.77 - 0.89 µm 20 @ 10 W m-2 sr-1 µm-1 46 @ 178 W m-2 sr-1 µm-1
Satellites this instrument is flying on

Note: a red tag indicates satellites no longer operational, a green tag indicates operational satellites, a blue tag indicates future satellites

Instrument classification
  • Earth observation instrument
  • Passive optical radiometer or spectrometer
  • High resolution optical imager
WIGOS Subcomponents
  • Subcomponent 1
  • High-resolution multi-spectral VIS/IR imagers
  • High-resolution multi-spectral VIS/IR imager
Mission objectives
Primary mission objectives
  • Biomass
  • Fraction of vegetated land
  • Land cover
  • Leaf Area Index (LAI)
  • Normalised Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI)
  • Vegetation type
Evaluation of Measurements

The following list indicates which measurements can typically be retrieved from this category of instrument. To see a full Gap Analysis by Variable, click on the respective variable.

Note: table can be sorted by clicking on the column headers
Note: * Primary mission objective.
VariableRelevance for measuring this variableOperational limitationsExplanation
Biomass*5 - marginalCloud sensitive.. Index only.. Infrequent coverage.. Daylight only.VIS and NIR channels. Biomass inferred from NDVI
Cloud cover5 - marginalInfrequent coverage.. Daylight only.VIS and NIR channels
Cloud optical depth4 - fairLow-density cloud only.. Infrequent coverage.. Daylight only.VIS and NIR channels
Fire fractional cover2 - very highCloud sensitive.. Daylight only.VIS channels with high resolution for boundary detection
Fraction of vegetated land*2 - very highCloud sensitive.. Daylight only.VIS and NIR channels
Glacier cover4 - fairCloud sensitive.. Long time for mapping.. Daylight only.VIS and NIR channels; and panchromatic channel with high resolution, for glacier boundary detection
Glacier topography5 - marginalCloud sensitive.. Long time for mapping.. Daylight only.VIS and panchromatic channels with cross-track steering capability for stereoscopy between images from neighbour orbits
Ice sheet topography5 - marginalCloud sensitive.. Long time for mapping.. Daylight only.VIS and panchromatic channels with cross-track steering capability for stereoscopy between images from neighbouring orbits
Land cover*2 - very highCloud sensitive.. Daylight only.VIS and NIR channels
Land surface topography5 - marginalCloud sensitive.. Long time for mapping.. Daylight only.VIS and panchromatic channels with cross-track steering capability for stereoscopy between images from neighbour orbits
Leaf Area Index (LAI)*4 - fairCloud sensitive.. Daylight only.. Infrequent coverage.VIS and NIR channels. LAI inferred from NDVI
Normalised Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI)*2 - very highCloud sensitive.. Infrequent coverage.VIS and NIR channels
Photosynthetically Active Radiation (PAR)5 - marginalCloud sensitive.. Infrequent coverage.VIS channels, range undersampled
Short-wave cloud reflectance5 - marginalInfrequent coverage.VIS and NIR channels. Unsuitable dynamic range (saturation)
Snow cover4 - fairCloud sensitive.. Infrequent coverage.. Daylight only.VIS, NIR and panchromatic (higher resolution) channels
Soil moisture at surface5 - marginalCloud sensitive.. Index only.. Infrequent coverage.. Daylight only.VIS and NIR channels. Soil moisture inferred from differential brightness
Soil type2 - very highCloud sensitive.. Daylight only.VIS and NIR channels
Upward short-wave irradiance at TOA5 - marginalSpectral interpolation needed.. Information on BRDF needed.. Infrequent coverage.VIS and NIR channels
Vegetation type*3 - highCloud sensitive.. Daylight only.VIS and NIR channels
Aerosol volcanic ash5 - marginalCloud sensitive.. Infrequent coverage.. Daylight only.VIS and NIR channels
Aerosol volcanic ash Total Column5 - marginalCloud sensitive.. Infrequent coverage.. Daylight only.VIS and NIR channels
Sea-ice cover5 - marginalCloud sensitive.. Daylight only.VIS and NIR (for contour enhancement) channels