TanDEM-X: A radar interferometer with two formation-flying satellites

详细信息    查看全文

• 作者：Gerhard Krieger ; ^{gerhard.krieger@dlr.de} ; Manfred Zink ; Markus Bachmann ; Benjamin Brä ; utigam ; Daniel Schulze ; Michele Martone ; Paola Rizzoli ; Ulrich Steinbrecher ; John Walter Antony ; Francesco De Zan ; Irena Hajnsek ; Kostas Papathanassiou ; Florian Kugler ; Marc Rodriguez Cassola ; Marwan Younis ; Stefan Baumgartner ; Paco Ló ; pez-Dekker ; Pau Prats ; Alberto Moreira
• 关键词：Remote sensing ; Formation flying ; Synthetic aperture radar (SAR) ; Interferometry ; Digital elevation model ; Earth observation
• 刊名：Acta Astronautica
• 出版年：2013
• 出版时间：August-September, 2013
• 年：2013
• 卷：89
• 期：Complete
• 页码：83-98
• 全文大小：12320 K

文摘

TanDEM-X (TerraSAR-X add-on for Digital Elevation Measurements) is an innovative formation-flying radar mission that opens a new era in spaceborne radar remote sensing. The primary objective is the acquisition of a global digital elevation model (DEM) with unprecedented accuracy (12 m horizontal resolution and 2 m relative height accuracy). This goal is achieved by extending the TerraSAR-X synthetic aperture radar (SAR) mission by a second, TerraSAR-X like satellite (TDX) flying in close formation with TerraSAR-X (TSX). Both satellites form together a large single-pass SAR interferometer with the opportunity for flexible baseline selection. This enables the acquisition of highly accurate cross-track interferograms without the inherent accuracy limitations imposed by repeat-pass interferometry due to temporal decorrelation and atmospheric disturbances. Besides the primary goal of the mission, several secondary mission objectives based on along-track interferometry as well as new bistatic and multistatic SAR techniques have been defined, representing an important and innovative asset of the TanDEM-X mission. TanDEM-X is implemented in the framework of a public-private partnership between the German Aerospace Center (DLR) and EADS Astrium GmbH. The TanDEM-X satellite was successfully launched in June 2010 and the mission started its operational data acquisition in December 2010. This paper provides an overview of the TanDEM-X mission and summarizes its actual status and performance. Furthermore, results from several scientific radar experiments are presented that show the great potential of future formation-flying interferometric SAR missions to serve novel remote sensing applications.