The NovaSAR-1 mission is a small satellite carrying an S-band Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR), which was launched in 2018.

Owned by Surrey Satellite Technology Ltd (SSTL) and Airbus Defence and Space, the satellite was created as part of a technology demonstration to test the feasibility of low-cost SAR instruments and explore S-band applications.

NovaSAR-1 is currently under assessment to join ESA's Third Party Missions programme.

Learn more about the mission in this infographic:

The S-band instrument onboard NovaSAR-1 can support a number of applications, including flood, agriculture, and forest monitoring; land use mapping; disaster management; and maritime applications.

Together with Vision-1, the two satellites form the first dedicated OptiSAR constellation, which enables combined analyses using SAR and optical acquisitions over the same location in close succession.