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FDR4ALT - ESA unveils new cutting-edge ERS/Envisat Altimeter and Microwave Radiometer Datasets
The European Space Agency (ESA) has developed a comprehensive suite of innovative Earth system data records as part of the Fundamental Data Records for Altimetry project - FDR4ALT.
ICEYE ESA archive collection now available to users
ICEYE ESA archive collection is now available worldwide through ESA’s Third Party Missions programme. The ESA archive collections consist of products requested by ESA-supported projects worldwide, and, therefore, the products are scattered and dispersed over the territory in different time windows. The datasets regularly grow as ESA collects new products over the years.
ICEYE ESA archive
The ICEYE ESA archive collection consists of ICEYE Level 1 products requested by ESA supported projects over their areas of interest around the world. The dataset regularly grows as ESA collects new products over the years. Three different modes are available: Spot: With a slant resolution of 50 cm in range by 25 cm in azimuth that translated into the ground generates a ground resolution of 1 m over an area of 5 km x 5 km. Due to multi-looking, speckle noise is significantly reduced Strip: The ground swath is 30 x 50 km2 and the ground range resolution is 3 m Scan: A large area (100 km x 100 km is acquired with ground resolution of 15 m). Two different processing levels: Single Look Complex (SLC): Level 1A geo-referenced product and stored in the satellite's native image acquisition geometry (the slant imaging plane) Ground Range Detected (GRD): Level 1B product; detected, multi-looked and projected to ground range using an Earth ellipsoid model; the image coordinates are oriented along the flight direction and along the ground range; no image rotation to a map coordinate system is performed, interpolation artefacts not introduced. The following table defines the offered product types: EO-SIP Product Type Mode Processing level XN_SM__SLC Strip Single Look Complex (SLC) - Level 1A XN_SM__GRD Strip Ground Range Detected (GRD) - Level 1B XN_SL__SLC Spot Single Look Complex (SLC) - Level 1A XN_SL__GRD Spot Ground Range Detected (GRD) - Level 1B XN_SR__GRD Scan Ground Range Detected (GRD) - Level 1B As per ESA policy, very high-resolution data over conflict areas cannot be provided.
Very High Resolution data to take centre stage
In the last few years, European New Space providers have helped strengthen the offering of very high resolution remote sensing data products—a designated workshop this November aims to focus on the latest developments in this arena.
How Envisat helped to shape global understanding of Earth’s systems
Twenty years have passed since a ground-breaking European spacecraft designed to deliver unprecedented insight into the planet’s changing environment was lofted into orbit.
ICEYE, the World’s First SAR New Space Constellation
ICEYE is a revolutionary Finnish company that developed and launched the world’s first under-100 kilogram synthetic-aperture radar (SAR) satellites into orbit.
Aquaculture User Consultation
The main goal of the workshop was to define a detailed set of user requirements for the future ESA Aquaculture project.
GHGSat archive and tasking
GHGSat data produce measures of vertical column densities of greenhouse gas emissions ((currently CH4, but eventually CO2), provided on a pre-defined area of 12 km x 12 km, from the full sensor field-of-view. GHGSat Catalogue and New Collect data are available in three different data types: Single Observation: a single observation of a scene. Monthly Monitoring: guaranteed 12 successful observations in a year over a given site (once per month or flexible best effort cadence depending on weather). Weekly Monitoring: guaranteed 52 successful observations in a year over a given site (once a week or flexible best effort cadence based on weather), to accommodate large & persistent monitoring needs. Data are provided as an Emissions package containing the following products: Abundance dataset (Level 2): Set of per-pixel abundances in excess of the local background (ppb) for a single species, and per-pixel measurement error expressed as a standard deviation for a single site on a single satellite pass. Data format is 16-bit GeoTIFF. Concentration Maps (Level 2): High readability pseudocolour map combining surface reflectance, and column density expressed in ppb for a single species in PNG format. The relevant abundance dataset is provided as well. Emission Rates (Level 4): Instantaneous rate for a detected emission from a targeted source estimated using abundance datasets from a single satellite pass and applying dispersion modelling techniques. The delivered product includes the emission rate estimate with uncertainty and key dispersion parameters (in CSV format) as well as the abundance dataset used for the emission estimate. This product is only delivered in the Emissions package if an emission is detected within the abundance dataset. The Level 2 products will be delivered regardless of whether or not an emission is detected. The properties of available products are summarised in the table. Band(s) / Beam Mode(s) and Polarisation SWIR (1635-1675 nm), multiple bands, unpolarised Spatial Resolution <30 m Scene size 12 km x 12 km Species Measured CH4 Geometric Corrections Radial distortion, perspective projection Radiometric Corrections Detector pixel response, ghosting, spectral response, atmospheric correction including trace gas modelling and surface reflectance Details about the data provision, data access conditions and quota assignment procedure are described in the GHGSat Terms of Applicability.
Food Security TEP
The Food Security Thematic Exploitation Platform (TEP) enables access, processing, uploading, visualisation, manipulation and comparison of data related to food security.
Announcement of Opportunity for NoR
ESA invites submissions for the Network of Resources (NoR) call, which aims to support research, development and pre-commercial users to innovate their working practices, moving from a data download paradigm towards a 'bring the user to the data' paradigm.
ICEYE full archive and tasking
ICEYE full archive and new tasking products are available in Strip, Spot, SLEA (Spot Extended Area), Scan, and Dwell modes: Strip instrument mode: the ground swath is illuminated with a continuous sequence of pulses while the antenna beam is fixed in its orientation. This results in a long image strip parallel to the flight direction: the transmitted pulse bandwidth is adjusted to always achieve a ground range resolution of 3 m Spot instrument mode: the radar beam is steered to illuminate a fixed point to increase the illumination time, resulting in an extended Synthetic aperture length, which improves the azimuth resolution. Spot mode uses a 300 MHz pulse bandwidth and provides a slant plane image with a resolution of 0.5 m (range) by 0.25 m (azimuth); when translated into the ground, the products has 1 m resolution covering an area of 5 km x 5 km. Due to multi-looking, speckle noise is significantly reduced As an evolution of Spot mode, SLEA (Spot Extended Area) products are available with the same resolution of Spot data but a scene size of 15 km x 15 km Scan Instrument mode: the phased array antenna is used to create multiple beams in the elevation direction which allows to acquire a large area (100km x 100km) with resolution better than 15m. To achieve the finest image quality of its Scan image, ICEYE employs a TOPSAR technique, which brings major benefits over the quality of the images obtained with conventional SCANSAR imaging. With the 2-dimensional electronic beam steering, TOPSAR ensures the maximum radar power distribution in the scene, providing uniform image quality. Dwell mode: with the satellite staring at the same location for up to 25 seconds, Dwell mode is a very long Spot mode SAR collection. This yields a very fine azimuth resolution and highly-reduced speckle. The 25 second collection time allows the acquired image stack to be reconstructed as a video to give insight into the movement of objects. Two different processing levels can be requested: Single Look Complex (SLC): Single Look Complex (SLC) Level 1a products consist of focused SAR data geo-referenced using orbit and attitude data from the satellite and the scenes are stored in the satellite's native image acquisition geometry which is the slant-range-by-azimuth imaging plane and with zero-Doppler SAR coordinates. The pixels are spaced equidistant in azimuth and in slant range. The products include a single look in each dimension using the full transmit signal bandwidth and consist of complex magnitude value samples preserving both amplitude and phase information. No radiometric artefacts induced by spatial resampling or geocoding. The product is provided in Hierarchical Data Format (HDF5) plus a xml file with selected metadata Ground Range Detected (GRD): Ground Range Detected (GRD) Level 1b products consist of focused SAR data that has been detected, multi-looked and projected to ground range using an Earth ellipsoid model. The image coordinates are oriented along the flight direction and along the ground range. Pixel values represent detected magnitude, the phase information is lost. The resulting product has approximately square spatial resolution pixels and square pixel spacing with reduced speckle due to the multi-look processing at the cost of worse spatial resolution. No image rotation to a map coordinate system has been performed and interpolation artefacts are thus avoided. The product is provided in GeoTiff plus a xml file with selected metadata. Strip Spot SLEA Scan Dwell Ground range resolution (GRD) 3 m 1 m 1 m 15 m 1 Ground azimuth resolution (GRD) 3 m 1 m 1 m 15 m 1 Slant range resolution (SLC) 0.5 m - 2.5 m 0.5 m 0.5 m 0.5 m Slant azimuth resolution (SLC) 3 m 0.25 m 1 m 0.05 m Scene size (W x L) 30 x 50 km2 5 x 5 km2 15 x 15 km2 100 x 100 km2 5 x 5 km2 Incident angle 15 - 30° 20 - 35° 20 - 35° 21 - 29° 20 - 35° Polarisation VV All details about the data provision, data access conditions and quota assignment procedure are described in the ICEYE Terms of Applicability. In addition, ICEYE has released a public catalogue that contains nearly 18,000 thumbnails under a creative common license of radar images acquired with ICEYE's SAR satellite constellation all around the world from 2019 until October 2020. Access to the catalogue requires registration. As per ESA policy, very high-resolution data over conflict areas cannot be provided.
Envisat
Envisat was ESA's successor to ERS. Envisat carried ten instruments aboard for a wide range of Earth observing fields. The mission was operational from 2002 to 2012.
ICEYE
As of June 2023, 27 X-band Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) satellites have been launched for the ICEYE constellation. This enables all-weather Earth observation.