Artist’s rendition of a satellite – paulfleet/123RF Stock

As 2024 begins we’re looking at some of the key Earth Observation (EO) satellite that are already planned to be launched this year.

1^st Quarter

• NASA’s Plankton, Aerosol Cloud Ocean Ecosystem (PACE) mission is due to be launched on the 6^th It’s primary payload will be the Ocean Color Instrument, an optical spectrometer that will be used to monitor the health of the oceans. This an exciting mission for us, as it its a hypersectral ocean colour mission.
• GISAT-2 (also known as EO-5) for the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) is planned for the end of the first quarter. This is a multispectral optical imaging satellite in geostationary orbit providing images for the monitoring of natural hazards and disasters.
• The NASA-ISRO Synthetic Aperture Radar satellite, known as NISAR, is also aiming the to be launched towards the end of the quarter. It will use L-band Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR imaging to map the Earth’s land and ice masses 4 to 6 times a month at resolutions of 5 to 10 metres.

2^nd Quarter

• GOSAT-GW (Greenhouse Gases Observing Satellite Greenhouse gases and Water cycle), previous known as GOSAT 3, is a Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) mission to monitor the greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide in the Earth’s atmosphere and is planned for a launch around the end of the first or start of the second quarter.
• GOES U will be the latest geostationary weather satellite for NASA and NOAA when it is launched at the end of April. It will be renamed GOES-19 once it reaches its operational orbit, and will help monitor weather conditions across the United States as the fourth, and final, one in the latest series.
• EarthCARE is a joint European-Japanese mission addressing the need for a better understanding of the interactions between cloud, radiative and aerosol processes in terms of climate. The focus is on the observation and characterization of clouds and aerosols as well as measuring the reflected solar radiation and the infrared radiation emitted from Earth’s surface and atmosphere. Expected to be launched during the second quarter, and it’s of particular interest to Pixalytics, as we’ve done work to support this mission.
• UK Pathfinder will be the first vertical launch from UK soil and, if successful, the first ever UK satellite launch. The mission will take off from the SaxaVord Spaceport, Shetland Space Centre in Scotland. It is expected to put six CubeSats into orbit, and there is likely that one will be an EO mission. We’ve also included here as it will be exciting to get a successful launch, fingers crossed!

3^rd Quarter

• European Space Agency’s (ESA) Sentinel-2C is tentatively scheduled for a September launch. This is, effectively, the replacement for Sentinel-2A. It will provide optical multispectral images to support a variety of terrestrial applications.

4th Quarter

Things become more speculative in the final quarter, as although there are a number of satellites indicating a launch in late 2024, whether they do launch this year or slip into 2025 will depend on a lot factors – including whether all the previous launches are successful! However, some of the EO launches suggested for this period are:

• ESA’s PROBA 3 mission will launch two satellites who will fly in formation in a highly elliptical orbit. They are expected to fly together, at distances potentially only 150m apart, and they will operate in tandem autonomously without relying on ground control.
• HRSAT is a high resolution Indian constellation consisting of three satellites offering in a sub metre resolution in panchromatic mode and a daily revisit capability.
• Cartosat-3B is an ISRO optical EO satellite offering spatial resolution of 1 metre in multispectral mode, and 0.25 metres in panchromatic mode. It is part of a three strong constellation, which is aimed at replacing the Cartosat-2 series.
• JAXA’s Advanced Land Observing Satellite-4 (ALOS-4) is another L-band SAT satellite which will using its all weather radar to provide support for forestry, sea-ice and disaster monitoring applications.
• South Korea’s KOrean Multi-Purpose SATellite-6 (KOMPSAT-6) is another SAR satellite and will provide spatial resolution of between 0.5 metres in panchromatic mode and 20 metres in multispectral mode.

Other EO Satellites

In addition, there are a number of EO satellites with a potential launch during this year. For example, WorldView’s Legion 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 & 6 are expected to be launched in pairs during the year.

Plus, there will be a huge variety of CubeSats launched during the year on various rideshares and other missions, and we’ll endeavour to look at these as they occur during the year. It’s also likely that China will continue to launch EO missions in the coming year to continue to develop its China High-resolution Earth Observation System.

Outside EO

SpaceX will continue to have frequent launches of its Starlinks, although it is expected that it will be joined in regular launches by Amazon’s Project Kuiper satellites as they try to build a rival satellite internet broadband network. There are also going to be a number of cosmic and deep space launches this year, such as the ISRO’s X-ray Polarimeter SATellite (XPoSat) studying the polarisation of cosmic X-rays and the dynamics of bright astronomical X-ray sources which was the first launch of the year taking off on the 1^st January 2024.

Summary

Overall, it looks like 2024 will again be an exciting year in the space, satellite and EO sectors!