ASAR

Advanced Synthetic Aperture Radar - SAR mode

Satellite

Envisat

Status

Operational – Utilised in the period 2002 to ~ 2013

Mission

High-resolution all-weather multi-purpose imager for ocean, land and ice

Instrument type

C-band SAR, frequency 5.331 GHz, multi-polarisation and variable pointing/resolution

Scanning technique

Side-looking, 15-45° off-nadir, swath 100 to 405 km, depending on operation mode – See table

Coverage/cycle

Global coverage in 5 day for the ‘global monitoring’ mode (if used for 70 % of the time); in longer periods for other operation modes, up to 3 months

Resolution

30 m to 1 km, depending on operation mode – See table

Resources

Mass: 832 kg - Power: 1400 W - Data rate: 100 Mbps

Operation mode

Resolution

Swath

Polarisation

Stripmap

30 m

100 km selectable within a range of 485 km

HH or VV

ScanSAR alternating pol

30 m

100 km selectable within a range of 485 km

VV/HH, HH/HV, VV/VH

ScanSAR wide swath

150 m

405 km

HH or VV

ScanSAR wide swath

150 m

405 km

HH or VV

ScanSAR global monitoring

1 km

405 km

HH or VV

Wave

30 m

5 x 5 km2 imagettes sampled at 100 km intervals

HH or VV