The Philippine Earth Data Resource and Observation (PEDRO) Center established a second Ground Receiving Station in Davao City. The Davao Ground Receiving Station will have a larger moving antenna with 7.3 m diameter which is capable of receiving higher frequency data, and a 40-foot container van which serves as the control room.
The ground facility is designed to communicate with Earth Observation satellites deployed in space by receiving, processing, exploiting and distributing space-borne imagery and derive information from remote sensing satellites for various applications such as disaster mitigation, natural resource management, environmental monitoring, pollution control, energy exploration, intelligence and emergency response management.
The project is part of a multi-agency research and development effort of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA), along with University of the Philippines (UP) Diliman, DOST-ASTI and two Japanese academic institutions: Tohoku University (TU) and Hokkaido University (HU), under the Philippine Scientific Earth Observation Micro-satellite (PHL-Microsat) Program.
Harold Bryan Paler, Senior Science Research specialist at DOST-ASTI and operations team lead of the PHL-Microsat Ground Receiving Station Project, conducted an orientation to the DOST XI personnel on the operation, maintenance and troubleshooting of the Davao Ground Receiving Station last January 30, 2019. This is in preparation for DOST XI’s monitoring, maintenance and troubleshooting of the system.
PEDRO targets to start operations of the Ground Receiving Station in time for the DOST Regional Science and Technology Week in July 2019.
