INTRODUCTION OF COMS SYSTEM

In this paper, Korea's first geostationary Communication, Ocean and Meteorological Satellte(COMS) program is introduced. COMS program is one of the Korea National Space Programs to develop and operate a pure civilian satellite of practical-use for the compound missions of meteorological observation and ocean monitoring, and space test of experimentally developed communication payload on the geostationary orbit. The target launch of COMS is scheduled at the end of 2008. COMS program is international cooperation program between KARI and ASTRIUM SAS and funded by Korean Government. COMS satellite is a hybrid satellite in the geostationary orbit, which accommodates multiple payloads of MI(Meteorological Imager), GOCI(Geostationary Ocean Color Imager), and the Ka band Satellite Communication Payload into a single spacecraft platform. The MI mission is to continuously extract meteorological products with high resolution and multi-spectral imager, to detect special weather such as storm, flood, yellow sand, and to extract data on long-term change of sea surface temperature and cloud. The GOCI mission aims at monitoring of marine environments around Korean peninsula, production of fishery information (Chlorophyll, etc.), and monitoring of long-term/short-term change of marine ecosystem. The goals of the Ka band satellite communication mission are to in-orbit verify the performances of advanced communication technologies and to experiment wide-band multi-media communication service mandatory.