Seisuke Fukuda

The Institute of Space and Astronautical Science JAXA is developing a landing radar comprising a radio altimeter and a velocity meter, which are two of the mandatory navigation sensors for a planetary Lander. A BBM of the landing radar has been evaluated on natural terrains by using a helicopter. This paper introduces the BBM hardware and discusses the dynamic performance in field experiments.

For scientific observation using a lunar and a planetary lander, a pinpoint landing technology whose ambiguity is less than 100m must be needed for landing system. A landing radar that measures an altitude and velocity of a space craft with microwave is very important navigation sensor to realize the pinpoint landing. It is a mandatory sensor for any future missions of planetary landing. This report describes the poroblems of the landing radar BBM in short range measurement.

The Institute of Space and Astronautical Science JAXA is developing a landing radar comprising a radio altimeter and a velocity meter, which are two of the mandatory navigation sensors for a planetary lander. A BBM of the landing radar has been evaluated on natural terrains by using a helicopter. This paper introduces the BBM hardware and discusses the dynamic performance in field experiments.

An accurate measurement of velocity is necessary for scientific observation using a lunar and a planetary lander that landing ambiguity is less than 100m. A landing radar is a sensor which measure an altitude and velocity of a space craft with C-band microwave pulse. This report describes that the dependance of terrain for velocity measurement and the result of field experiment using a helicopter.

This paper describes the on-orbit results and lessons learned of the small scientific satellite "INDEX" (REIMEI) for aurora observation and demonstration of advanced satellite technologies. REIMEI is a small satellite with 72kg mass, and is provided with three-axis attitude controlled capabilities for aurora observation. REIMEI was launched into a nearly sun synchronous polar orbit on Aug. 23^<rd>, 2005 (UT) from Baikonur, Kazakhstan by Dnepr rocket. REIMEI satellite functions satisfactorily on the orbit. Three axis control is achieved with accuracy of 0.05 deg. Multi-spectrum images of aurora are taken with 8Hz rate and 2 km spatial resolution to investigate the aurora physics. REIMEI is a small scientific satellite for aurora observation and advanced satellite technologies, and was launched into a nearly sun synchronous polar orbit on Aug. 23^<rd>, 2005 (UTC) from Baikonur, Kazakhstan by Dnepr rocket. REIMEI satellite functions satisfactorily on the orbit. The three-axis attitude control is achieved with accuracy of 0.05deg. REIMEI is performing the simultaneous observation of aurora images as well as particle measurements. REIMEI indicates that even a small satellite launched as a piggy-back can successfully perform the unique scientific mission purposes.

Science experiment on the Moon with the small intelligent lander is under study. Despite of small mass badget for science instrument, short mission life without long-lived survivability, and limitation of landing site on the lunar near side, small mission can provide an opportunity for landing at the most desirable site for its objective. It will be also a good testbed of technology demonstlation for future lunar and planetary missions. We present here the small lunar lander mission and its science payload proposed.

This paper describes the initial on-orbit results of the small scientific satellite "INDEX" (REIMEI) for aurora observation and demonstration of advanced satellite technologies. REIMEI is a small satellite with 72kg mass, and is provided with three-axis attitude control capabilities for aurora observation. REIMEI was launched into a nearly sun synchronous polar orbit on Aug. 23^<rd>, 2005 (UT) from Baikonur, Kazakstan by Dnepr rocket. REIMEI satellite functions work satisfactorily in the orbit. The first imaging observations of aurora were successfully performed above the southern polar region in Sep. 16^<th>, 2005.

In this paper, texture analysis of high resolution SAR images over forest areas is performed. The high resolution SAR images are described well by K-distribution, which is derived from product model of speckle and gamma-distributed texture. This study aims to reveal two subjects concerning order parameter of the K-distribution. The first is that K-distribution's order parameter is decreased owing to the existence of point target. Another, we try to clarify the relation between the order parameter and texture features given by the co-occurrence matrix. Also the differences between the simulation images and the real SAR images due to neiboring correlation properties are discussed.

A radar for navigation in future lunar/planetary landing missions is developed in the JAXA/ISAS. The C-band pulse radar provides not only altitude information but also relative velocity against the surface, so that the landers can perform pinpoint landing on the pre-decided place. In this paper, the landing radar overview and its technological characteristics are described with the review of scattering properties on the lunar surface. The results of the dynamic flight experiment using a helicopter are also reported.

Boosting is a method of pattern recognition that executes ensemble learning by combining simple rules. Even when performing a complicated classification, Boosting dose not suffer increase in computation time and degradation of generalization by updating weights of each learner. In the classification of synthetic aperture radar (SAR) images, fluctuation of features due to speckle noise sometimes reduces classification accuracy. In this paper, we have performed land cover classification of multifrequency polarimetric SAR images robust against speckle using the AdaBoost algorithm.