Sentinel-1C: Level 0 Synthetic Aperture Radar Satellite Data

Sentinel-1C satellite data, launched December 5, 2024, provides C-band synthetic aperture radar (SAR) imaging globally. Level 0 products are compressed, unprocessed instrument source packets, including noise, calibration, echo packets, and orbit information. These products are the raw basis for higher-level processing and are mirrored from the Copernicus Data Space Ecosystem.

Use Cases

• Generate higher-level geospatial products based on raw instrument source packets.
• Perform custom SAR focusing and analysis based on Level 0 compressed data.
• Study satellite calibration and noise characteristics based on included auxiliary information.
• Integrate orbit and attitude data for precise geolocation in downstream processing.

Strengths

• Provides raw data from the latest satellite in the Sentinel-1 constellation, launched December 5, 2024.
• Offers dual polarization capability and short revisit times as described for the constellation.
• Operates in four imaging modes with resolutions down to 5 meters and coverage up to 400 kilometers.

Limitations

• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• Data requires decompression and processing using focusing software to be usable.
• Row count is unknown, which may limit suitability assessment.

Provenance

Source

Copernicus Data Space Ecosystem, provided via NASA Earthdata.

Collection Method

Satellite instrument data collection.

Time Range

Data collection began after the satellite launch on December 5, 2024.

Geography

Global coverage from a sun-synchronous polar-orbiting satellite.