Disaster Monitoring Constellation to Expand

In 2014, DMCii is to launch a constellation of 1m-resolution sensors, built by Surrey Satellite Technology Ltd (SSTL, UK). Specialists from the UK-based DMCii company spoke about the activities for and perspectives on expanding the DMC Disaster Monitoring Constellation at the 5th International Conference, entitled 'Earth from Space...', that was held from 29th November to 1st December 2011 in Moscow, Russia.  

Originally the DMC Disaster Monitoring Constellation was designed for daily tracking of emergency situations in any part of the globe and for timely response. To date, the application of acquired images varies a lot, from agricultural and forests monitoring to Earth surface mapping.

The DMC consists of a growing constellation of small satellites, each carrying a wide swath (up to 650km) optical sensor. Two further DMC satellites were launched into the constellation in August 2011: NigeriaSat-2 and NigeriaSat-X. Upon completion of the commissioning phase, these will bring the total number of operational DMC satellites to seven. NigeriaSat-2 will deliver 2.5m PAN and 5m MS data in four VIS/NIR bands, as well as a 32m wide swath sensor (also with 4 bands). NigeriaSat-X carries another 22m multispectral, providing further data continuity to the constellation for the wide swath HR applications.