SAR-X

Synthetic Aperture Radar - X-band

Satellites

TanDEM-X, TerraSAR-X, TerraSAR-X2

Status

Operational – Utilised in the period 2007 to ~ 2018

Mission

High-resolution all-weather multi-purpose imager for ocean, land and ice.  TerraSAR-X and TanDEM-X have coordinated orbits so as to enable computation of accurate Digital Elevation Model

Instrument type

X-band SAR, frequency 9.65 GHz, multi-polarisation and variable swath/resolution

Scanning technique

Side-looking, swath 10 to 100 km, depending on operation mode – See table

Coverage/cycle

Determined by strategic pointing.  Minimum revisit time for a selected location: 2.5 d

Resolution

1 to 16 m, depending on operation mode – See table

Resources

Mass: … kg - Power: … W - Data rate: … Mbps

Operation mode

Resolution

Swath

Polarisation

Spotlight

1 m

10 km

HH or VV or HV or VH

Stripmap

3 m

30 km

HH or VV or HV or VH

ScanSAR

16 m

100 km

HH or VV or HV or VH