TanDEM-X 10 Years of Operation: Mission Status and Science Activities
Conference: EUSAR 2021 - 13th European Conference on Synthetic Aperture Radar
03/29/2021 - 04/01/2021 at online
Proceedings: EUSAR 2021
Pages: 3Language: englishTyp: PDF
Authors:
Hajnsek, Irena (German Aerospace Center (DLR), Microwaves and Radar Institute, Wessling, Germany & ETH Zurich, Institute of Environmental Engineering, Zurich, Switzerland)
Moreira, Alberto; Zink, Manfred; Buckreuss, Stefan; Kraus, Thomas; Bachmann, Markus; Busche, Thomas (German Aerospace Center (DLR), Microwaves and Radar Institute, Wessling, Germany)
Abstract:
The paper provides an up to date overview of the German TanDEM-X satellite mission status and its ongoing science activities. In June 2020 TanDEM-X reached his 10 years of successful operation. The global digital elevation model (DEM) of TanDEM-X became available in 2016 and surpassed all expectations: It has 99.9% coverage, 12-m posting, absolute height accuracy of approximately 1 m and a relative height error (standard deviation) of 0.8 m. This unique data set has been available since then for commercial and scientific applications. Last year, a low-resolution version of the global digital elevation model with 90-m posting has been released for free download for scientific applications. Since 2017 new interferometric acquisitions have been started with the goal to generate a global change layer which will register all the changes of the Earth topography occurred since the first acquisitions of TanDEM-X. The acquisition for the global change layer was completed by mid of 2020. Since then a new science phase of TanDEM-X with a focus on interferometric acquisitions over forest, ice sheets and permafrost regions are ongoing.