Chinese crop information specialist Tuyuan Technologies has launched an international competition to build a five-satellite constellation to provide global monitoring of food crops. The first of the low-cost synthetic-aperture radar (SAR) satellites is due for launch in early 2007, and all five will be in place by 2009 at a cost expected to be less than $150 million.
In July, Beijing-based Tuyuan launched efforts to raise an initial $10 million to address the market for precise prediction of global grain harvests and the risks from floods and other events. The company has developed the SaStats system, which processes raw data from SAR Earth-observation satellites and broadcasts statistical crop information to users in near real-time over a broadband satellite network.
Tuyuan's planned Surveyor network will comprise five identical satellites carrying low-cost medium C-band SAR sensors.
Source: Flight International