Pre-flight performance characterization of RazakSAT medium-sized aperture camera (MAC)

Abstract

Pre-flight performance has been characterized on the Medium-sized Aperture Camera (MAC) of the RazakSAT: capable of Earth observation at 2.5 m resolution and 20 km swath width. Topics discussed in this paper include measurements of system modulation transfer function (MTF) and pixel lines-of-sight (LOS); characterization of focal plane assembly (FPA) and signal processing electronics; end-to-end imaging. The MTF was obtained with knife-edge scanning technique, which is also used to align the FPA. For band-to-band registration, relative pixel LOS was measured using theodolite and effective focal length of the telescope was derived from the measurement. For the FPA and signal processing module, dark reference, pixel-to-pixel response variation and response linearity have been quantified. The end-to-end imaging tests were done to check the imaging function before the launch, by scanning a slide target at the focus of the collimator.