In: Wagner W., Székely, B. (eds.): ISPRS TC VII Symposium - 100 Years ISPRS, Vienna, Austria, July 5-7, 2010, IAPRS, Vol. XXXVIII, Part 7B 
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Table 1. General specification of the satellite radiometric 
systems 
Observation geometry of the small satellite system is presented 
in Fig. 1. Antenna of the radiometric system will be oriented for 
observation in nadir direction and provide spatial resolution 
about 350 km and swath width 700 km. In the main operational 
mode two beams of the system oriented across the flight 
direction in order to have wider swath width. In addition to this 
mode it may be possible to rotate the satellite so that two beams 
will be in a flight plane. This mode may be useful for 
calibration purposes and development of RFI suppression 
algorithms. 
Fig.l. Observation geometry of the small satellite microwave 
system 
Advanced L-band radiometric system (ALRS) will be installed 
on the module of Russian segment of International Space 
Station (RS ISS) (planed installation - 2010). General 
specification of the instrument is presented in the last column of 
Table 1. It is a set of radiometers with pushbroom 8 beams 
antenna. Each beam will have spatial resolution about 50 km. 
Observation geometry of the advanced microwave system is 
presented in Fig. 2. 
Due to relatively large size of the ALRS antenna and 
requirements to deliver instrument in compact state through the 
manhole it has folding elements and will be deployed manually. 
General view of L-band radiometric system in compact 
(transport) state is shown in Fig. 3. 
Now both radiometric systems are made in technological 
versions and are in the procedure of laboratory testing. Results 
of testing are in a good agreement with technical requirements. 
350450 km 
Fig.2. Observation geometry of the advanced microwave 
system 
Fig.3. L-band radiometric system ALRS in compact (transport) 
state. 
3. SCIENTIFIC OBJECTIVES AND GENERAL 
FEATURES OF THE EXPERIMENTS 
Microwave radiometers despite their low spatial resolution are 
widely used in space remote sensing of environment. It is due 
to ability of microwave radiometry to get data which are 
impossible or at least very difficult to get by any other means. 
Such data are data on averaged by surface and/or depth 
thermodynamic temperature of physical objects, their integral