WMO OSCAR | Details for Instrument PANMUX

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Instrument: 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^-2sr^-1µm^-1	48 @ 244 W m^-2sr^-1µm^-1
0.555 µm	0.52 - 0.59 µm	26 @ 28 W m^-2sr^-1µm^-1	47 @ 313 W m^-2sr^-1µm^-1
0.660 µm	0.63 - 0.69 µm	21 @ 18 W m^-2sr^-1µm^-1	45 @ 263 W m^-2sr^-1µm^-1
0.830 µm	0.77 - 0.89 µm	20 @ 10 W m^-2sr^-1µm^-1	46 @ 178 W m^-2sr^-1µm^-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

China-Brazil Earth Resources Satellite (CAST)
- CBERS-3 (see instrument status) Dec 2013 - Dec 2013
- CBERS-4 (see instrument status) Mar 2015 - 2024
- CBERS-4B (see instrument status) Mar 2020 - 2024

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.

Variable	Relevance for measuring this variable	Operational limitations	Explanation
Biomass*	5 - marginal	Cloud sensitive.. Index only.. Infrequent coverage.. Daylight only.	VIS and NIR channels. Biomass inferred from NDVI
Cloud cover	5 - marginal	Infrequent coverage.. Daylight only.	VIS and NIR channels
Cloud optical depth	4 - fair	Low-density cloud only.. Infrequent coverage.. Daylight only.	VIS and NIR channels
Fire fractional cover	2 - very high	Cloud sensitive.. Daylight only.	VIS channels with high resolution for boundary detection
Fraction of vegetated land*	2 - very high	Cloud sensitive.. Daylight only.	VIS and NIR channels
Glacier cover	4 - fair	Cloud sensitive.. Long time for mapping.. Daylight only.	VIS and NIR channels; and panchromatic channel with high resolution, for glacier boundary detection
Glacier topography	5 - marginal	Cloud 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 topography	5 - marginal	Cloud 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 high	Cloud sensitive.. Daylight only.	VIS and NIR channels
Land surface topography	5 - marginal	Cloud 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 - fair	Cloud sensitive.. Daylight only.. Infrequent coverage.	VIS and NIR channels. LAI inferred from NDVI
Normalised Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI)*	2 - very high	Cloud sensitive.. Infrequent coverage.	VIS and NIR channels
Photosynthetically Active Radiation (PAR)	5 - marginal	Cloud sensitive.. Infrequent coverage.	VIS channels, range undersampled
Short-wave cloud reflectance	5 - marginal	Infrequent coverage.	VIS and NIR channels. Unsuitable dynamic range (saturation)
Snow cover	4 - fair	Cloud sensitive.. Infrequent coverage.. Daylight only.	VIS, NIR and panchromatic (higher resolution) channels
Soil moisture at surface	5 - marginal	Cloud sensitive.. Index only.. Infrequent coverage.. Daylight only.	VIS and NIR channels. Soil moisture inferred from differential brightness
Soil type	2 - very high	Cloud sensitive.. Daylight only.	VIS and NIR channels
Upward short-wave irradiance at TOA	5 - marginal	Spectral interpolation needed.. Information on BRDF needed.. Infrequent coverage.	VIS and NIR channels
Vegetation type*	3 - high	Cloud sensitive.. Daylight only.	VIS and NIR channels
Aerosol volcanic ash	5 - marginal	Cloud sensitive.. Infrequent coverage.. Daylight only.	VIS and NIR channels
Aerosol volcanic ash Total Column	5 - marginal	Cloud sensitive.. Infrequent coverage.. Daylight only.	VIS and NIR channels
Sea-ice cover	5 - marginal	Cloud sensitive.. Daylight only.	VIS and NIR (for contour enhancement) channels