CBERS and Amazon satellites: from satellite engineering to applications

In this thematic session we will present the Earth observation missions managed by INPE. The China–Brazil Earth Resources Satellite Program (CBERS) currently has two satellites in orbit, CBERS-4 and CBERS 04A. The Amazonia 1 satellite was successfully launched in February 2021 and is operational. This session's set of presentations will address the engineering characteristics of satellites and their cameras. It also presents the status of the systems and processes that generate and disseminate the images to the remote sensing community. Finally, we will present applications of CBERS and Amazonia 1 images. To execute the monitoring of the Brazilian Amazon natural vegetation, INPE extensively uses images in the visible spectral range, with medium spatial resolution and high revisit rate, what has been specially enhanced with the Wide Field Imager camera (WFI) onboard of the three satellites. On the other hand, the higher resolution images allow monitoring the magnitude and extent of natural disasters, updating reference cartographic bases or managing major infrastructure works. Manual or automatic methods can extract information from images, which are then used in support of decision-making processes. The presentations on those applications will discuss the importance and the limitations of CBERS and Amazonia 1 missions.