The georeferencing of RASAT satellite imagery and some practical approaches to increase the georeferencing accuracy

Abstract

RASAT Earth Observation Satellite is the second remote sensing satellite of The Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey (TUBITAK) Space Technologies Search Institute (TUBITAK Space). Generally, the first step to utilize the satellite imagery in GIS applications is the accurate geometric correction of the imagery. But, the geometric correction process of RASAT images is somewhat difficult due to insufficient orbit data and lack of satellite imagery processing software with RASAT model. Although the geolocation of RASAT images is investigated in some recent studies, subpixel accuracies cannot be achieved. In this study, different geometric correction methods and combination of them are tested with a more interactive workflow that uses the results of other approaches. Results show that these approaches can be used for the geometric correction of RASAT like pushbroom satellite images with insufficient orbit data and better geolocation accuracies can be achieved by different geometric correction approaches.