RADARSAT-1 & 2: Full Archive and Tasking Products in Multiple Beam Modes

RADARSAT-1 and 2 satellite data, available through NASA's Earthdata platform, includes a full archive and new tasking capabilities. The dataset offers products in several beam modes, including Standard, Wide, Fine, Extended High, Extended Low, and ScanSAR, each with varying incidence angles, swath widths, and spatial resolutions. The organization listed is the European Space Agency (ESA).

Use Cases

• Land cover and change detection based on multi-beam mode imagery with different spatial resolutions.
• Monitoring coastal zones and sea ice using the Wide beam mode's 150 km swath width.
• High-resolution terrain analysis using Fine beam mode imagery with 8-9 meter resolution.
• Wide-area surveillance and rapid mapping using ScanSAR mode's combined beam swaths.

Strengths

• Offers multiple beam modes (Standard, Wide, Fine, Extended High, Extended Low, ScanSAR) for different observation needs.
• Standard beam mode provides a 500 km accessibility swath with seven beam positions (S1-S7).
• Fine beam mode offers high spatial resolution, with nominal azimuth resolution of 8.4 meters.
• ScanSAR mode enables wider ground coverage by sequentially combining multiple single beams.

Limitations

• Description metadata is limited; actual data quality requires manual inspection after download.
• Row count, file formats, and column-level documentation are absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• Last update date is unknown; freshness unverified.

Provenance

Source

European Space Agency (ESA)

Collection Method

Satellite remote sensing via RADARSAT-1 and RADARSAT-2 spacecraft.

Geography

Global coverage, with a 500 km accessibility swath for the Standard beam mode set.