The ESA Earth Observation TerraSAR-L system features a L-band Synthetic Aperture Radar and strives for very high radiometric performance for spatial resolutions of 5 meters and swaths up to 200 km, in strip-map and ScanSAR operations, full-polarimetric capabilities, repeat-pass ScanSAR interferometry and a Wave Mode. Such levels of radiometric performance require the use of instrument calibrati...

Drained thermokarst lake basins accumulate significant amounts of soil organic carbon in the form of peat, which is of interest to understanding carbon cycling and climate change feedbacks associated with thermokarst in the Arctic. Remote sensing is a tool useful for understanding temporal and spatial dynamics of drained basins. In this study, we tested the application of high-resolution X-band...

In this study we compared the accuracy of low-pulse airborne laser scanning (ALS) data, multi-temporal high-resolution noninterferometric TerraSAR-X radar data and a combined feature set derived from these data in the estimation of forest variables at plot level. The TerraSAR-X data set consisted of seven dual-polarized (HH/HV or VH/VV) Stripmap mode images from all seasons of the year. We were...

Since beginning of 2008 products of TerraSAR-X have been available for the scientific community and the great performance of this satellite system has been proven by encouraging results presented during the recent workshops and conferences. Outstanding technical features of TerraSAR-X are multiple geometric and radiometric imaging as well as the short revisiting time of 11 days. These offer the...

TerraSAR-L is the new imaging radar mission of the European Space Agency. The platform, based on the novel Snapdragon concept, is built around the active phase array antenna of the L-band Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR). Specification of the L-SAR has been guided by careful analysis of the product requirements resulting in a robust baseline design with considerable margins. Besides having a comm...

Some early results of the TerraSAR-X observations of the northeastern Adriatic bora wind are presented in this paper. TerraSAR-X is a German X-band radar satellite launched in 2007 that carries phased array X-band synthetic aperture radar (SAR) operating in different polarizations and providing multiple imaging modes. SAR backscatter can be used to derive wind fields at spatial resolution that ...

The TerraSAR-X launched on June 15, 2007 is one of the most state of the art satellite sensors. Its sophisticated feature is in demand for the application for map generation and monitoring purposes. One of the basic products of TerraSAR-X is the Enhanced Ellipsoid Corrected (EEC) orthorectified image. The product is projected to map geometry and terrain induced distortions are corrected using a...