Independent Verification of the Sentinel-1A System Calibration - First Results

Conference: EUSAR 2014 - 10th European Conference on Synthetic Aperture Radar
06/03/2014 - 06/05/2014 at Berlin, Germany

Proceedings: EUSAR 2014

Pages: 4Language: englishTyp: PDF

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Authors:
Schwerdt, Marco; Schmidt, Kersten; Tous Ramon, Nuria; Castellanos Alfonzo, Gabriel; Doering, Bjoern; Zink, Manfred; Prats, Pau (Microwave and Radar Institute of the German Aerospace Center (DLR), Wessling, Germany)

Abstract:
In the frame of the GMES program, the main objective of the Sentinel-1 mission is to ensure the continuity of SAR data acquisitions in C-band for global earth monitoring. Sentinel-1A is the first of two C-band satellites and scheduled for launch in spring of 2014. In addition to the commissioning of Sentienl-1A executed by ESA, an independent verification of the system calibration will be executed for the first time by an external institution. For this purpose, the complete calibration chain was developed and established by DLR, starting with an efficient calibration concept, a detailed in-orbit calibration plan, the SW-tools for analysing and evaluating all the measurments up to the calibration targets serving as accurate reference. Based on an efficient calibration strategy, this paper describes the different activities performed by DLR. First results obtained from real in-orbit data are not described, as Sentinel-1A had been not launched at the time of uploading the full paper. A discussion of radiometric and geometric calibration results will be presented at the conference on June 2014.