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TerraSAR-X

Infoterra GmbH | Satellite images

TerraSAR-X

The First Commercial 1m Radar Satellite

Overview

The new German radar satellite TerraSAR-X was successfully launched on June 15th, 2007, from Baikonur in Kazakhstan.

With its active antenna, the spacecraft acquires new high-quality X-band radar images of the entire planet whilst circling Earth in a polar orbit at 514 km altitude. TerraSAR-X is designed to carry out its task for five years, independent of weather conditions and illumination, and reliably provides radar images with a resolution of up to 1m.

Technical Features include

  • Active phased array X-band SAR
  • Single, dual and quad polarisation
  • Side-looking acquisition geometry
  • Sun-synchronous dawn-dusk repeat orbit
  • Repetition rate: 11 days; due to swath overlay, a 2.5 day revisit time can be achieved
  • Orbit altitude range from 512 km to 530 km
  • Three operational imaging modes:
    - SpotLight: up to 1m resolution, 10 km (width) x 5 km (length)
    - StripMap: up to 3m resolution, 30 km (width) x 50 km (length)
    - ScanSAR: up to 18 m resolution, 100 km (width) x 150 km (length)