Post mission life plan for FORMOSAT-2

This paper presents the enhancement in mission operations, the mission life state-of-health (SOH) trending analysis, and the post mission life plan of the FORMOSAT-2 (or FS2, Formosa satellite #2, was called ROCSAT-2, or RS2, Republic of China satellite #2, previously) during its five years mission life from 20 May 2004 to 20 May 2009. There are two payloads onboard FS2: a remote sensing instrument (RSI) with nadir ground sampling distance (GSD) of 2 m for panchromatic (PAN) and GSD of 8 m for multi-spectral (MS, 4 bands) as the primary payload, and an imager for sprite and upper atmospheric lightning (ISUAL) as the secondary payload. It was launched on 20 May 2004. The design life is 7 years while the mission life is 5 years. In other words, the end of mission life date of FS2 is 20 May 2009. Generally speaking, FS2 is still at very good condition in its SOH. Post mission life plan for FS2 consists of: the practice of orbit transfer for global coverage and better resolution, the development of gyroless attitude control, and the method for life extension. It is expected that the working life of FS2 can be extended 3–5 years.