Japanese mission overview of JERS and ASTER programs

JERS-1 is an earth observation satellite to be launched in February of 1992. The fundamental concept of the JERS-1 is to develop a satellite equipped with geologically-oriented sensor systems truly based upon user's requirements. The JERS-1 is expected to provide world-wide high resolution, whicb will be useful for not only non-renewable resources exploration, but also agriculture, forestry and fishery, disaster prevention, environmental monitoring, and so on. ASTER is a research facility instrument to be onboard the AS's FDS-A platform in 1998, and inherits the technologies developed for the JERS-1. The ASTER instrument will provide valuable data for EOS key science tasks such as surface compositional mapping and surface process quantification and/or monitoring.