FORMOSAT-2

Formosat -2 ( also ROCSAT 2 - Republic of China Satellite 2 ) is an Earth observation satellite Taiwanese Taiwanese National Space Program Office ( NSPO ), FORMOSAT from the program.

It is primarily used for remote sensing of the Earth. The images have a swath width of 24 x 24 km and a geometric resolution of 2 m ( panchromatic) and 8 m ( four-channel multispectral ). They should be used for various applications such as agronomy, landscape protection, civil protection and the like. The sensors equipped with a 60 -cm mirror camera of Remote Sensing Instrument ( RSI) are working in the spectral range from 0.45 to 0.90 microns ( panchromatic camera ) or from 0.45 to 0.52 microns ( blue), 0, 52 to 0.60 microns ( green), 0.63 to 0.69 microns ( red) and from 0.76 to 0.90 microns ( near infrared). In addition there is the instrument Imager of Sprites and Upper Atmospheric Lightning ( isual ) for observation of lightning in the upper atmosphere ( 40-100 km ) on board.

The satellite was launched on 19 May 2004 from Vandenberg Air Force Base with a Taurus XL rocket into a sun-synchronous orbit. The satellite bus delivered Astrium. The life of five years have been planned, but the satellite is still working without any problems.