Sentinel-1A/B SAR Calibration and Performance Status

Inhalt:
Sentinel-1 (S-1) is the European flagship SAR mission initiated by European Space Agency and the European Commission. It is a constellation of two C-band twins satellite providing backscatter globally. The calibration and overall SAR performance of the mission is continuously assessed by the S-1 Mission Performance Center being a joint venture of European experts in their domain under ESA‘s supervision. This paper addresses the Copernicus Sentinel-1A/B mission’s SAR calibration and overall performance indicators after 8 years cumulated operation having in sight S-1A approaching its expected lifetime of 7 years. Sentinel-1 uses predefined observation scenario to provide a high revisit frequency and systematic global SAR image coverage. This is mainly based upon the operational use of the TOPS (Terrain Observation with Progressive Scans in azimuth) SAR imaging mode allowing to achieve a wide swath with a relatively high resolution. In particular, we present results of the SAR system performance analysis focusing on the instrument stability, the radiometric, geolocation accuracy, the Noise Equivalent Σ Zero (NESZ) and all interferometric performance indicators. In addition, we discuss the Sentinel-1A/B SAR cross-calibration and the evolution of the system in the near future.