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Document - Newsletter
Earth Online Newsletter - 03 November 2023
This issue of the Earth Online Newsletter covers a selection of the latest news and events from ESA.
News - Success Stories
Commercial and international data for fire monitoring
As climate change sparks a surge in the frequency and intensity of wildfires, satellite data disseminated through ESA’s Third Party Missions (TPM) programme are helping scientists to track and investigate these potentially damaging natural events.
News - General News
International collaboration: Summarising ESA’s Third Party Missions
ESA’s Third Party Missions programme consists of more than 50 missions from around the world. Learn more about the Third Party Missions in this video.
News - Data Release news
PAZ ESA archive now open to users
The PAZ ESA archive collection is now freely available for researchers worldwide through ESA's Third Party Missions programme.
News - Thematic area articles
How satellite data help to shape society
Data from ESA’s Earth observation archives are improving understanding of the interactions between human activities and the environment, helping to power green economic development and boosting prosperity in Europe and beyond.
Data - EO Sign In Authentication (Open)
PAZ ESA archive
The PAZ ESA archive collection consists of PAZ Level 1 data previously requested by ESA supported projects over their areas of interest around the world and, as a consequence, the products are scattered and dispersed worldwide and in different time windows. The dataset regularly grows as ESA collects new products over the years. Available modes are: StripMap mode (SM): SSD less than 3 m for a scene 30 km x 50 km in single polarization or 15 km x 50 km in dual polarisation ScanSAR mode (SC): the scene is 100 x 150 km2, SSD less than 18 m in signle pol only Wide ScanSAR mode (WS): single polarisation only, with SS less than 40 m and scene size of 270 x 200 km2 Spotlight modes (SL): SSD less than 2 m for a scene 10 km x 10 km, both single and dual polarization are available High Resolution Spotlight mode (HS): in both single and dual polarisation, the scene is 10x5 km2, SSD less than 1 m Staring Spotlight mode (ST): SSD is 25 cm, the scene size is 4 x 4 km2, in single polarisation only. The available geometric projections are: Single Look Slant Range Complex (SSC): single look product, no geocoding, no radiometric artifact included, the pixel spacing is equidistant in azimuth and in ground range Multi Look Ground Range Detected (MGD): detected multi look product, simple polynomial slant-to-ground projection is performed in range, no image rotation to a map coordinate system is performed Geocoded Ellipsoid Corrected (GEC): multi look detected product, projected and re-sampled to the WGS84 reference ellipsoid with no terrain corrections Enhanced Ellipsoid Corrected (EEC): multi look detected product, projected and re-sampled to the WGS84 reference ellipsoid, the image distortions caused by varying terrain height are corrected using a DEM. The following table summarises the offered product types. EO-SIP product type Operation Mode Geometric Projection Geometric Projection PSP_SM_SSC Stripmap (SM) Single Look Slant Range Complex (SSC) PSP_SM_MGD Stripmap (SM) Multi Look Ground Range Detected (MGD) PSP_SM_GEC Stripmap (SM) Geocoded Ellipsoid Corrected (GEC) PSP_SM_EEC Stripmap (SM) Enhanced Ellipsoid Corrected (EEC) PSP_SC_MGD ScanSAR (SC) Multi Look Ground Range Detected (MGD) PSP_SC_GEC ScanSAR (SC) Multi Look Ground Range Detected (MGD) PSP_SC_EEC ScanSAR (SC) Geocoded Ellipsoid Corrected (GEC) PSP_SC_SSC ScanSAR (SC) Enhanced Ellipsoid Corrected (EEC) PSP_SL_SSC Spotlight (SL) Single Look Slant Range Complex (SSC) PSP_SL_MGD Spotlight (SL) Multi Look Ground Range Detected (MGD) PSP_SL_GEC Spotlight (SL) Geocoded Ellipsoid Corrected (GEC) PSP_SL_EEC Spotlight (SL) Enhanced Ellipsoid Corrected (EEC) PSP_HS_SSC High Resolution Spotlight (HS) Single Look Slant Range Complex (SSC) PSP_HS_MGD High Resolution Spotlight (HS) Multi Look Ground Range Detected (MGD) PSP_HS_GEC High Resolution Spotlight (HS) Geocoded Ellipsoid Corrected (GEC) PSP_HS_EEC High Resolution Spotlight (HS) Enhanced Ellipsoid Corrected (EEC) PSP_ST_SSC Staring Spotlight (ST) Single Look Slant Range Complex (SSC) PSP_ST_MGD Staring Spotlight (ST) Multi Look Ground Range Detected (MGD) PSP_ST_GEC Staring Spotlight (ST) Geocoded Ellipsoid Corrected (GEC) PSP_ST_EEC Staring Spotlight (ST) Enhanced Ellipsoid Corrected (EEC) PSP_WS_SSC Wide ScanSAR (WS) Single Look Slant Range Complex (SSC) PSP_WS_MGD Wide ScanSAR (WS) Multi Look Ground Range Detected (MGD) PSP_WS_GEC Wide ScanSAR (WS) Geocoded Ellipsoid Corrected (GEC) PSP_WS_EEC Wide ScanSAR (WS) Enhanced Ellipsoid Corrected (EEC)
Event - Training
EO Summer School 5
ESA's series of summer schools, on Monitoring of the Earth System, aims to promote the exploitation of Earth observation data.
Document - General Reference
Third Party Missions Brochure
This brochure summarises ESA's Third Party Missions programme, providing a timeline and examples of content related to some of the missions.
Document - Technical Note
Technical Note on PAZ-TSX-CSK Intercomparison Quality Assessment
Technical Note on PAZ-TSX-CSK Intercomparison Quality Assessment
News - Success Stories
New open-source Python library improves rapid mapping services
In emergency services, rapid response is paramount. ICube-SERTIT’s Rapid Mapping Service provides near real-time delivery of geo-information to help emergency services respond quickly to disasters such as flooding, fires and landslides. A new Python open-source library, called EOReader, speeds up this mapping response by enabling the easy opening of imagery from multiple satellite sensors, both optical and synthetic aperture radar (SAR).
News - Success Stories
PAZ - Spain's radar success
One way of collecting images in unfavourable weather is to use Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR). PAZ is one such Earth observation mission capable of delivering all-weather imagery thanks to its X-band SAR.
News - Infographics
An overview of the PAZ SAR satellite mission
Learn more about the PAZ mission, a Spanish X-Band SAR satellite and part of ESA's Third Party Missions programme, in our latest infographic.
News - Data Release news
New imaging modes added to PAZ collection
Two new imaging modes, Wide ScanSAR and Staring Spotlight, have been added to the PAZ offering and are now available to users for research and application development following submission of a project proposal subject to evaluation and acceptance by ESA and the data owner.
News - Infographics
An overview of ESA's Third Party Missions programme
ESA’s Third Party Missions programme consists of almost 50 satellite missions, which are owned by organisations around the world. ESA has agreements with these organisations to acquire, process, and distribute data from their missions
News - Infographics
ESA Third Party Missions timeline
We've released a new timeline to illustrate the history of the ESA Third Party Missions.
Document - Technical Note
PAZ-Data-Terms-Of-Applicability.pdf
This document contains the Terms of Applicability and Terms and Conditions for accessing the Third Party Mission PAZ data.
News - General News
ESA's new DataCube service is now available
ESA is pleased to announce the deployment of a new service, called ESA PDGS-DataCube, enabling multi-temporal and pixel-based access to a subset of the data available in the European Space Agency dissemination services.
News - General News
ESA’s Earth Observation Catalogue and its services
EO-CAT is the EO Catalogue tool allowing users to search ESA and Third Party Mission collections.
Data - Project Proposal (Restrained)
PAZ Full Archive and New Tasking
PAZ Image Products can be acquired in eight image modes with flexible resolutions (from 1 m to 40 m) and scene sizes. Thanks to different polarimetric combinations and processing levels the delivered imagery can be tailored specifically to meet the requirements of the application. Available modes are: StripMap mode (SM): in single and dual polarisation: The ground swath is illuminated with a continuous train of pulses while the antenna beam is pointed to a fixed angle, both in elevation and in azimuth. ScanSAR mode (SC): in single polarisation: the swath width is increased in respect to the StripMap mode, it is composed of four different sub-swaths, which are obtained by antenna steering in elevation direction Wide ScanSAR mode (WS), in single polarisation: the usage of six sub-swaths allows to obtain a higher swath coverage product Spotlight modes: in single and dual polarisation: Spotlight modes take advantage of the beam steering capability in the azimuth plane to illuminate for a longer time the area of interest: a sensible improvement of the azimuth resolution is achieved at the expense of a shorter scene size. Spotlight mode (SL) is designed to maximise the azimuth scene extension at the expense of the spatial resolution, and High Resolution Spotlight mode (HS) is designed to maximize the spatial resolutions at the expense of the scene extension. Staring Spotlight mode (ST), in single polarisation: The virtual rotation point coincides with the center of the beam: the image length in the flight direction is constrained by the projection on- ground of the azimuth beamwidth and it leads to a target azimuth illumination time increment and to achieve the best azimuth resolution. There are two main classes of products: Spatially Enhanced products (SE): designed with the target of maximize the spatial resolution in pixels with squared size, so the larger resolution value of azimuth or ground range determines the square pixel size, and the smaller resolution value is adjusted to this size and the corresponding reduction of the bandwidth is used for speckle reduction. Radiometrically Enhanced products (RE): designed with the target of maximize the radiometry, so the range and azimuth resolutions are intentionally decreased to significantly reduce speckle by averaging several looks. The following geometric projections are offered: Single Look Slant Range Complex (SSC): single look product of the focused radar signal: the pixels are spaced equidistant in azimuth and in slant range. No geocoding is available, no radiometric artifacts included. Product delivered in the DLR-defined binary COSAR format. The SSC product is intended for applications that require the full bandwidth and phase information, e.g. for SAR interferometry and polarimetry. Multi Look Ground Range Detected (MGD): detected multi look product in GeoTiff format with reduced speckle and approximately square resolution cells on ground. The image coordinates are oriented along flight direction and along ground range; the pixel spacing is equidistant in azimuth and in ground range. A simple polynomial slant to ground projection is performed in range using a WGS84 ellipsoid and an average, constant terrain height parameter. No image rotation to a map coordinate system is performed and interpolation artifacts are thus avoided. Geocoded Ellipsoid Corrected (GEC): multi look detected product in GeoTiff format. It is projected and re-sampled to the WGS84 reference ellipsoid assuming one average terrain height. No terrain correction performed. UTM is the standard projection, for polar regions UPS is applied. Enhanced Ellipsoid Corrected (EEC): multi look detected product in GeoTiff format. It is projected and re-sampled to the WGS84 reference ellipsoid. The image distortions caused by varying terrain height are corrected using an external DEM; therefore the pixel localization in these products is highly accurate. UTM is the standard projection, for polar regions UPS is applied. StripMap Single StripMap Dual ScanSAR Wide ScanSAR Spotlight Single Spotlight Dual HR Spotlight Single HR Spotlight Dual Staring Spotlight Mode ID SM-S SM-D SC WS SL-S SL-D HS-S HS-D ST Polarizations HH, VV, HV, VH HH/VV, HH/HV, VV/VH HH, VV, HV, VH HH, VV, HV, VH HH, VV, HV, VH HH/VV, HH/HV, VV/VH HH, VV, HV, VH HH/VV, HH/HV, VV/VH HH, VV, HV, VH Scene size (Range x Azimuth) [km] 30 x 50 15 x 50 100 x 150 [273-196] x 208 10 x 10 10 x 10 10-6 x 5 (depending on incident angle) 10 x 5 [9-4.6] x [2.7-3.6] Range Resolution [m] MGD, GEC, EEC (SE)[Ground range] 2.99 - 3.52 at (45° - 20°) 6 N/A N/A 1.55 - 3.43 at (55° - 20°) 3.09 - 3.5 at (55° - 20°) 1 - 1.76 at (55° - 20°) 2 - 3.5 at (55° - 20°) 0.96 -1.78 at (45°- 20°) MGD, GEC, EEC (RE) [Ground range] 6.53 - 7.65 at (45° - 20°) 7.51 - 10.43 at (45° - 20°) 16.79 - 18.19 at (45° - 20°) 35 3.51 - 5.43 at (55° - 20°) 4.98 - 7.63 at (55° - 20°) 2.83 - 3.11 at (55° - 20°) 4 - 6.2 at (55° - 20°) 0.97 - 1.78 at (45°-20°) SSC[Slant range] 1.1 (150 MHz bandwidth) 1.7 (100 MHz bandwidth) 1.18 1.17 - 3.4 (depending on range bandwidth) 1.75 - 3.18 (depending on range bandwidth) 1.18 1.17 0.6 1.17 0.59 Azimuth Resolution [m] MGD, GEC, EEC (SE) 3.05 6.11 N/A N/A 1.56 - 2.9 at (55° - 20°) 3.53 1 - 1.49 at (55 °- 20°) 2.38 - 2.93 at (55° - 20°) 0.38 - 0.7 at (45°-20°) MGD, GEC, EEC (RE) 6.53 - 7.60 at (45° - 20°) 7.52 - 10.4 at (45° - 20°) 17.66 - 18.18 at (45° - 20°) 39 3.51 - 5.4 at (55° - 20°) 4.99 - 7.64 at (55° - 20°) 2.83 - 3.13 at (55° - 20°) 4 - 6.25 at (55° - 20°) 0.97 - 1.42 at (45°-20°) SSC 3.01 6.04 18.5 38.27 1.46 3.1 1.05 2.16 0.22
News - General News
PAZ data now available to users worldwide
ESA is pleased to announce the availability of the PAZ satellite products to the scientific community, for R&D activities and start-ups.