Disaster monitoring by ALOS and follow-on mission

Advanced Land Observing Satellite(ALOS) was successfuly launched on January 24th 2006 at Tanegashima Space Center by H-IIA rocket. The Satellite mass is about 4 tons of weight, Sun synchronous sub-recurrent orbit, repetation cycle is 46 days (sub cycle 2days) and 5 years mission operation. ALOS has four missions such as Cartography, Regional Observation, Resource Survey and Diasater monitoring. After the satelllite launch, there were several opportunities to observe natural disasters in the world.. ALOS will be distribute disaster information through international framework such as Sentinel Asia and International Charter on Disaster Monitoring. The 'Sentinel Asia' initiative was established by space agencies and disaster authorities in the Asia and Oceania, to use Remote Sensing information and Web-GIS data-delivery technologies in support of disaster management in the Asia-Pacific region. Sentinel Asia is 'voluntary and best-efforts-basis initiatives' led by the Asia-Pacific Regional Space Agency Forum (APRSAF) to share the disaster information in the region using the 'Digital Asia' (Web-GIS) platform. International Charter is the membership framework to operate the satellite in case of disaster occurs. and distribute the data and information free of charge. ALOS is nominated both activities to contribute disaster monitoring and mitigation. This paper describes the introduction of ALOS and acquired disaster images to indicate its potential use for disaster monitoring. The design of follow on mission is indispensable to promise continuous monitoring of natural disaster. This paper also describes the initial idea of ALOS follow on mission.