Introduction to COMS Geostationary Ocean Color Imager

The Communication Ocean, Meteorological Satellite (COMS) as the one of the national space program has been developed by Korea Aerospace Research Institute (KARl). The Geostationary Ocean Color Imager (GOCI) is one of the main payloads ofCOMS which will provide consistent monitoring of ocean-colour around the Korean Peninsula from geostationary platforms. The ocean color observation from geostationary platform is required to remedy the coverage constraints imposed by polar orbiting platforms. In this paper the main characteristics of GOCI are described and compared with the current ocean color sensors. The GOCI will provide the measurement data of 6 visible channels and 2 nearinfrared channels (40Onm - 900nm). The high radiometric sensitivity is essential of ocean color sensor because of the weak water leaving radiance.