The Philippine Earth Data Resource and Observation Center, also known as the PEDRO Center is an organization tasked in operating satellite ground stations. It is part of the Philippine Scientific Earth Observation Micro-satellite (Phil-Microsat) program by the Department of Science and Technology, which includes the deployment of the

Diwata-1 Diwata-1 also known as PHL-Microsat-1 was a Philippine microsatellite launched to the International Space Station (ISS) on March 23, 2016, and was deployed into orbit from the ISS on April 27, 2016. It was the first Philippine microsatellite an ...

and

Diwata-2 Diwata-2 or Diwata-2B is a Philippine microsatellite launched on October 29, 2018. It is the first satellite launched under the STAMINA4Space program. Development The satellite was developed by 11 scholars under the Philippine Department of Sci ...

microsatellites. It also receives information from commercial satellites.

History

The Philippine Earth Data Resource and Observation (PEDRO) Center project was implemented by the Advanced Science and Technology Institute of the Department of Science and Technology in December 2016 following the launch of the Philippines' first microsatellite,

on April 26, 2016. The project was implemented to be able to establish a ground receiving station that would gather data from satellites.

Satellite ground stations

PEDRO's first

satellite ground station A ground station, Earth station, or Earth terminal is a terrestrial radio station designed for extraplanetary telecommunication with spacecraft (constituting part of the ground segment of the spacecraft system), or reception of radio waves fro ...

is situated at the Department of Science and Technology–Advanced Science and Technology Institute (DOST–ASTI) facility at the

University of Philippines Diliman The University of the Philippines Diliman (also called UPD; ), also referred to as UP Diliman, is a public, coeducational, research university located in Diliman, Quezon City, Philippines. It was established on February 12, 1949, as the flagsh ...

Quezon City Quezon City (, ; ), also known as the City of Quezon and Q.C. (read and pronounced in Filipino language, Filipino as Kyusi), is the richest and List of cities in the Philippines, most populous city in the Philippines. According to the 2020 c ...

Philippines The Philippines, officially the Republic of the Philippines, is an Archipelagic state, archipelagic country in Southeast Asia. Located in the western Pacific Ocean, it consists of List of islands of the Philippines, 7,641 islands, with a tot ...

. The facility has a satellite tracking antenna. The ground station was initially planned to be located inside the

Subic Bay Freeport Zone The Subic Special Economic and Freeport Zone, often shortened as Subic Bay or Subic, is a special economic zone and List of free ports, freeport area covering portions of the city of Olongapo and the town of Subic, Zambales, Subic in Zambales, ...

in Subic,

Zambales Zambales, officially the Province of Zambales (; ; ; ; ), is a Provinces of the Philippines, province in the Philippines located in the Central Luzon Regions of the Philippines, region. Its capital is Iba, Zambales, Iba, which is located in t ...

. This plan was reportedly changed in March 2016, with the ground station to be built in

Diliman Quezon City (, ; ), also known as the City of Quezon and Q.C. (read and pronounced in Filipino language, Filipino as Kyusi), is the richest and List of cities in the Philippines, most populous city in the Philippines. According to the 2020 c ...

instead. Construction began in 2016 and PEDRO became operational by June 2017. The second satellite ground station was launched on June 30, 2019 and is located at the

Civil Aviation Authority of the Philippines The Civil Aviation Authority of the Philippines (CAAP, ; ) is the civil aviation authority of the Philippines and is responsible for implementing policies on civil aviation to assure safe, economic and efficient air travel. The agency also in ...

(CAAP) Transmitter Facility in

Davao City Davao City, officially the City of Davao, is a City of the Philippines#Legal classification, highly urbanized city in the Davao Region, Philippines. The city has a total land area of , making it the List of Philippine cities and municipalities ...

Francisco Bangoy International Airport Francisco Bangoy International Airport , also known as Davao International Airport, is the main airport serving Davao City and Davao Region in the Philippines. Serving as the main gateway to Mindanao, it is the busiest airport on the island an ...

. The Davao facility has a satellite tracking antenna and a container van which serves as a control room. A third ground station in

Dumangas Dumangas, officially the Municipality of Dumangas (, ), is a municipality in the province of Iloilo, Philippines. According to the 2020 census, it has a population of 73,899 people. Etymology Local stories written regarding the origin of the na ...

Iloilo Iloilo ( ; ), officially the Province of Iloilo (; ; ; ), is a province in the Philippines located in the Western Visayas region. Its capital and largest city is Iloilo City, the regional center of Western Visayas and politically independen ...

was launched in August 2022. While the first two stations were funded by the DOST, the Iloilo station was financed by the

Japan International Cooperation Agency The Japan International Cooperation Agency (), also known as JICA'','' is a governmental agency that delivers the bulk of Official Development Assistance (ODA) for the government of Japan. It is chartered with assisting economic and social gr ...

. The station was slated to open in July 2020 but was delayed because of the

COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic (also known as the coronavirus pandemic and COVID pandemic), caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), began with an disease outbreak, outbreak of COVID-19 in Wuhan, China, in December ...

Linked satellites

Aside from the PHL-Microsat satellites the Pedro Center has access to data of other third-party satellites. ;Multispectral satellites *

Maya-1 Maya-1 was a Filipino nanosatellite. It was developed under the Philippine Scientific Earth Observation Microsatellite program (PHL-Microsat) and was jointly implemented by the University of the Philippines and the Department of Science and ...

Maya-2 Maya-2 was a Filipino nanosatellite. It succeeded Maya-1, the first Filipino nanosatellite, which was deorbited in November 2020. Background Maya-2 was a nanosatellite or a 1U-class CubeSat measuring and weighing . It was the successor to Maya- ...

*Maya-3 *Maya-4 *Maya-5 *Maya-6 *

KompSat-3 KOMPSAT-3 (Korean Multi-purpose Satellite-3), also known as Arirang-3, is a South Korean multipurpose Earth observation satellite. It was launched from Tanegashima Space Center, Japan at 16:39 UTC on 17 May 2012. Like the earlier KOMPSAT-1 an ...

* PlanetScope (Constellation of 100+ nanosatellites) *

RapidEye RapidEye AG was a German geospatial information provider focused on assisting in management decision-making through services based on their own Earth-observation imagery. The company operated a five-satellite constellation producing 5-meter re ...

GeoEye-1 ''GeoEye-1'' is a high-resolution Earth observation satellite owned by Maxar Technologies (formerly DigitalGlobe), launched in September 2008. The satellite was acquired in the 2013 purchase of GeoEye. History On 1 December 2004, General Dynam ...

WorldView-1 WorldView-1 (WV 1) is a commercial Earth observation satellite owned by DigitalGlobe. WorldView-1 was launched on 18 September 2007, followed later by the WorldView-2 in 2009. First imagery from ''WorldView-1'' was available in October 2007, prior ...

WorldView-2 WorldView-2 (WV 2) is a commercial Earth observation satellite owned by DigitalGlobe. WorldView-2 provides commercially available panchromatic imagery of resolution, and eight-band multispectral imagery with resolution. It was launched 8 Oct ...

WorldView-3 WorldView-3 (WV 3) is a commercial Earth observation satellite owned by DigitalGlobe. It was launched on 13 August 2014 to become DigitalGlobe's sixth satellite in orbit, joining Ikonos which was launched in 1999, QuickBird in 2001, WorldView-1 i ...

Sentinel-2A Sentinel-2A is a European optical imaging satellite launched in 2015. It is the first Sentinel-2 satellite launched as part of the European Space Agency's Copernicus Programme. The satellite carries a wide swath high-resolution multispectral imag ...

Sentinel-2B Sentinel-2B is a European optical imaging satellite that was launched on 7 March 2017. It is the second Sentinel-2 satellite launched as part of the European Space Agency's Copernicus Programme, and with its orbit phased 180° against its siste ...

;SAR satellites *

KompSat-5 KOMPSAT-5 (Korean Multi-purpose Satellite-5), also known as Arirang-5, is a South Korean observation satellite launched by Korea Aerospace Research Institute on August 22, 2013. It is a low-orbit satellite with an operational orbit of 550 km. D ...

Cosmo-Skymed COSMO-SkyMed (COnstellation of small Satellites for the Mediterranean basin Observation) is an Earth-observation satellite space-based radar system funded by the Italian Ministry of Research and Ministry of Defence and conducted by the Ital ...

References

{{Philippine space program Earth stations in the Philippines Department of Science and Technology (Philippines) Research institutes in Metro Manila 2016 establishments in the Philippines