DESIGN OF A FREE AND OPEN SOURCE DATA PROCESSING, ARCHIVING, AND DISTRIBUTION SUBSYSTEM FOR THE GROUND RECEIVING STATION OF THE PHILIPPINE SCIENTIFIC EARTH OBSERVATION MICRO-SATELLITE

Abstract. The Philippines’s PHL-Microsat program aims to launch its first earth observation satellite, DIWATA, on the first quarter of 2016. DIWATA’s payload consists of a high-precision telescope (HPT), spaceborne multispectral imager (SMI) with liquid crystal tunable filter (LCTF), and a wide field camera (WFC). Once launched, it will provide information about the Philippines, both for disaster and environmental applications. Depending on the need, different remote sensing products will be generated from the microsatellite sensors. This necessitates data processing capability on the ground control segment. Rather than rely on commercial turnkey solutions, the PHL-Microsat team, specifically Project 3:DPAD, opted to design its own ground receiving station data subsystems. This paper describes the design of the data subsystems of the ground receiving station (GRS) for DIWATA. The data subsystems include: data processing subsystem for automatic calibration and georeferencing of raw images as well as the generation of higher level processed data products; data archiving subsystem for storage and backups of both raw and processed data products; and data distribution subsystem for providing a web-based interface and product download facility for the user community. The design covers the conceptual design of the abovementioned subsystems, the free and open source software (FOSS) packages used to implement them, and the challenges encountered in adapting the existing FOSS packages to DIWATA GRS requirements.