RADARSAT-2 Information

RADARSAT International is pleased to announce the signing of the first Regional Partner Agreement for the RADARSAT-2 program. The Norwegian Space Center (NSC) and Kongsberg Satellite Services (KSAT) have both indicated their interest in RADARSAT-2 through an investment in the program that will provide rights to an exclusive territory in which they may use and distribute RADARSAT-2 data.

All design reviews have now been successfully completed and the program is well into the manufacturing phase.

Some delay has been experienced in the manufacture of the spacecraft. Accurate prediction of a launch date is dependent upon resolution of a few manufacturing issues. Current schedule estimates — across a range of probabilities — indicate a launch date in 2006. Program performance over the next six months will allow us to more accurately predict a launch date within the scheduled range. A further program update will be provided in the next 3-6 months.

RADARSAT-1 continues to perform well and there are no concerns regarding data continuity.

The SOAR program documentation is complete and a SOAR Program Co-ordination Office is in the process of being established. We are waiting to finalize the timing of proposal submissions so they are more in line with the new estimated launch date. It is our hope to release the document in late fall (again dependant on the RADARSAT-2 Program Performance Review). We feel it is important to ensure that proposal submissions are not too far in advance of the satellite's launch. Thank-you for your patience.

More information: We will continue to collect names of organizations and people interested in the SOAR program to ensure that you are notified as soon as a release date has been chosen.

SAR polarimetry is a new concept to many people in the remote sensing industry. It is a difficult concept to grasp, and even more challenging to understand how to apply the theory to various application areas.

There are a number of on-line resources that provide useful information regarding polarimetry theory and its applications. Epsilon.Nought is one such site. Epsilon.Nought has resources geared towards developing tutorials for beginners, and includes a dedicated tutorial on SAR Polarimetry as well as a "beginners" guide called Polarimetry for Dummies.

The visualization of complex geographic/spatial information has been an ongoing area of research within different application areas for different data sources. Optimizing the visualization techniques for geographic data enhances the human ability to identify patterns in the data and to intuitively provide spatial reasoning.

Current remote sensing visualization techniques often rely on the creation of basic RGB (red, green, blue) colour composites. With the launch of RADARSAT-2 increasing quantities of fully-polarimetric data will be widely available. The ability to convey the information of the many complex parameters, which can be derived from polarimetric data, and then relate this information to the spatial relationships within the landscape, is a daunting task.

Various visualization techniques are being explored in the hopes that they will improve the understanding of polarimetric data. Dean Turner and Dr. Iain Woodhouse from the University of Edinburgh are developing innovative approaches to exploring polarimetric response patterns through an iconic representation of polarimetric response graphs. This approach provides a synoptic overview of the polarimetric data as well as a means in which to visualize variations in response patterns across large areas.

RADARSAT International and the Canadian Space Agency will be hosting the RADARSAT International Network Stations' Meeting September 25 - 26, 2003.

This year's primary focus will be RADARSAT-2. Discussions will be conducted on the status of the RADARSAT-2 program, satellite capabilities, and station system upgrades.

If you have any questions about RADARSAT-2, the applications, or the new features of the satellite, please send them to us. We will share the answers to your questions in a future issue of SAR-Trek: The Next Generation.

Q: If we are calculating the power received from a resolution cell of transmitting & receiving polarizations, what 4 measurements will we use?

MDA's Geospatial Services, is a global leader in providing data, information products and services from the majority of commercially available radar and optical Earth imaging satellites. These satellites include RADARSAT-1, ENVISAT, ERS, LANDSAT, IKONOS, QuickBird, EROS A, RESOURCESAT-1 and IRS. Our global markets include natural resource management and environmental monitoring, ice mapping, agriculture, ship detection, mapping and surveillance.

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