JAXA Earth Observation Programs Digest

This paper digests the current and the near future scenario of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) Earth Observation Program (EOP). JAXA's EOP has over thirty years history and experiences since the mid of 1980s. Medium to large scale EO satellites with various optical and radar sensors, i.e., MOS-1/1b, JERS-1, ADEOS, ADEOS-II, ALOS, GOSAT, and GCOM-W1, were developed. ALOS-2 was launched on May 24, 2014 as the successor of the ALOS for the high resolution land monitoring in all weather conditions. Aqua/AMSR-E and TRMM/PR were onboard the NASA satellites as the international joint mission instruments. Airborne SAR systems were developed for further investigations and R&D of the SAR data. Their mission objectives fully synchronize with the Group on Earth Observation (GEO) [1].