Making NISAR Data Accessible to the Community

Abstract:
Launching in early 2024, the NASA-ISRO SAR (NISAR) mission will bring an unprecedented amount of SAR data to the community. Producing 50PB of SAR data per year, NISAR leverages novel approaches to data processing, manage-ment, and distribution. Its broad product portfolio, adding several analysis ready data products to the typical SAR fare, opens up new possibilities for data access and delivery. This paper summarizes innovative approaches developed by the Alaska Satellite Facility and the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory to make NISAR’s massive data set accessible to the community. We summarize developed concepts for data discovery and distribution, and highlight tools and services that enable working with SAR data directly at the archive. We close with a range of capacity-building efforts developed across the NASA-linked SAR community that will help familiarize users with NISAR products and processing flows.