RAMOS overview

The Russian American Observation Satellites (RAMOS) program is a joint US-Russian experiment designed to perform stereo real-time measurements of the background radiance and structure as seen by down and limb-looking sensors. The experiment will address environmental issues also that are well-suited for stereo observation. The RAMOS experiment consists of two dedicated satellites, an American Observational Satellite (AOS) and a Russian Observational Satellite (ROS), both in the same low Earth orbit. The targeted lifetime of the mission is one year. The complimentary sensors on board the two satellites will be used to collect stereo imagery of backgrounds of interest in the visible and infrared wavelength regions. The data base of stereo imagery will be analyzed to produce valuable information such as cloud heights, temperature profiles, the statistics of stressing clutter situations, hurricane motion and strength, and other environmental monitoring parameters. This paper will discuss the RAMOS goals and describe the roadmap in place for achieving them. Such goals include the demonstration of successful simultaneous operations and data exchange between US and Russian science teams, the overlay, registration and resolution matching of images collected by disparate sensors for constructing three structured scenes, and clutter modeling.