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Edinburgh / Herndon, 2 December 2021. – NASA has expanded its Commercial Smallsat Data Acquisition Program (CSDAP) to include Airbus as the first radar data provider to NASA’s community of researchers and scientists, Airbus announced.
Airbus will help advancing NASA’s science and application goals and provide a comprehensive catalog of Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) Earth observation data products to the Agency.
CSDAP, initiated in 2017, strives to identify, acquire and evaluate data from commercial sources supporting the agency’s Earth science activities. Airbus’ radar constellation will offer geometric accuracy, with high temporal and spatial resolution regardless of weather conditions.
The radar constellation consists of the German TerraSAR-X / TanDEM-X satellite formation and the Spanish PAZ satellite. Its three radar sensors have a revisit time of up to 12 hours. They can provide resolutions from 25 cm to 40 m with six imaging modes.
Radar data are valuable to various applications, like monitoring ship traffic, drift ice in areas without daylight, detecting surface movement, and identifying objects.
