# AEISS-A
*sensor . products*

KOMPSAT-3A high-resolution passive optical electro-optical camera, providing 0.55 m panchromatic and 2.2 m multispectral imagery.

## Specifications
- **product status**: operational
- **deployment context**: orbital
- **manufacturer**: kari
- **sensor**: {"instrument_family":"passive-optical","measurement_principle":"passive","spectral_range_nm":{"min":450,"max":900},"spectral_band_count":5,"gsd_m":{"native":0.55},"swath_km":12,"bit_depth":14}
- **entity type**: sensor
- **last verified date**: 2026-06-16
- **verified by**: agency-doc
- **claim status**: agency-sourced
- **provider**: kari
- **attributes**: {"kind":"sensor","product_status":"operational","deployment_context":"orbital","manufacturer":"kari","description":"KOMPSAT-3A high-resolution passive optical electro-optical camera, providing 0.55 m panchromatic and 2.2 m multispectral imagery.","sensor":"{\"instrument_family\":\"passive-optical\",\"measurement_principle\":\"passive\",\"spectral_range_nm\":{\"min\":450,\"max\":900},\"spectral_band_count\":5,\"gsd_m\":{\"native\":0.55},\"swath_km\":12,\"bit_depth\":14}"}
- **technology**: optical-spectral-sensing
- **relevance**: in-scope

## Editorial
## Overview

AEISS-A (Advanced Earth Imaging Sensor System-A) is a high-resolution pushbroom electro-optical camera flown on the KOMPSAT-3A satellite, launched 25 March 2015 and declared fully operational in September 2015.[^eoportal-kompsat3a] It provides 0.55 m panchromatic (PAN) and 2.2 m multispectral (MS) imagery,[^kari-arirang-3a] and includes an Infrared Imaging System (IIS) mid-wave infrared channel.[^eoportal-kompsat3a]

## Optical design

AEISS-A uses a Korsch three-mirror anastigmat telescope with an 80 cm primary aperture and 8.6 m focal length.[^eoportal-kompsat3a] The PAN focal plane uses a 24,000-pixel time-delay integration (TDI) line array with 8.75 µm pixel pitch.[^pmc-calibration] The MS focal plane uses four arrays of 6,000 pixels each (35 µm pixel pitch) with binning, producing blue, green, red, and near-infrared bands.[^eoportal-kompsat3a] KOMPSAT-3A operates at 528 km altitude, which gives the 0.55 m PAN GSD cited in KARI documentation.[^kari-arirang-3a] The camera delivers 12 km swath at 14-bit radiometric depth.[^sic-kompsat3a]

## Infrared Imaging System (IIS)

IIS is a single-channel MWIR imager covering 3.3-5.2 µm,[^sic-kompsat3a] with a mercury cadmium telluride (MCT) focal plane array cooled to 80 K.[^eoportal-kompsat3a] It provides 5.5 m GSD over the same 12 km swath as the EO channels,[^eoportal-kompsat3a] enabling day-and-night thermal imaging for applications including fire detection, volcanic activity monitoring, and disaster response.[^eoportal-kompsat3a] A wavelength discrepancy between source documents (3-5 µm vs 3.3-5.2 µm) is noted; 3.3-5.2 µm is taken from the more detailed operator datasheet.[^sic-kompsat3a]

## Observation applications

Optical time-series change detection has been demonstrated using KOMPSAT-3A imagery.[^eoportal-kompsat3a] Vegetation index mapping has been demonstrated with the multispectral channels.[^eoportal-kompsat3a] Land surface temperature and emissivity retrieval has been demonstrated using the IIS thermal channel.[^eoportal-kompsat3a]

## Geometric calibration

A geometric calibration and validation study of the AEISS-A camera using ground control points and stereo tie points is documented in peer-reviewed literature.[^pmc-calibration]

## Compositional position
- kompsat-3a (missions) --[mission_payloads]--> AEISS-A

## Sources
- [kari-arirang-3a] | KARI Multi-purpose Practical Satellite (Arirang) No.3A | https://www.kari.re.kr/eng/contents/163 | tier=agency-doc | accessed=2026-06-16
- [eoportal-kompsat3a] | KOMPSAT-3A / Arirang-3A - eoPortal | https://www.eoportal.org/satellite-missions/kompsat-3a | tier=community | accessed=2026-06-16
- [sic-kompsat3a] | Satellite Imaging Corporation, KOMPSAT-3A satellite sensor specifications | https://satimagingcorp.com/satellite-sensor/kompsat-3a/ | tier=operator-datasheet | accessed=2026-06-16
- [pmc-calibration] | Geometric Calibration and Validation of Kompsat-3A AEISS-A Camera (Sensors, 2016) | https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC5087559/ | tier=peer-reviewed | accessed=2026-06-16 | published=2016-01-01

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Source: https://eo-atlas.org/products/sensor/aeiss-a
Maintainer: SpectraWorks B.V. (CC-BY 4.0)