A new dataset has been released for the WaddenSAR campaign, which took place in March 2022 over the Wadden Sea in the Netherlands.

ESA conducts airborne and ground-based campaigns to support the development of new instruments, and calibration and validation of existing instruments. These campaigns simulate satellite-based instruments and are conducted all over the world in support of a wide range of applications.

The WaddenSAR campaign was conducted to support assessment of Harmony, which was selected as ESA’s 10th Earth Explorer. Harmony will consist of two passive Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) satellites to study ocean circulation, glaciers and land-surface topography. The two satellites will fly in a re-configurable formation and will use Sentinel-1 C or D as transmitter, forming a multistatic SAR system.

WaddenSAR used two Cesna aircraft flying in formation, which both carried C-band SAR instruments to demonstrate the concept for Harmony on a smaller scale. Flights were conducted over the Wadden Sea on 14 and 16 March, which gathered data on wave and current velocity.

The campaign successfully demonstrated climate applications for advanced radar technology. Results from the campaign were presented at the User Consultation Meeting in 2022, where a decision was made to select Harmony as the 10th Earth Explorer. Data from the campaign were processed to Single Look Complex images and are freely offered for download following submission of a data access request.  

Learn more about WaddenSAR and how to request the data