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ICEYE, the leader in synthetic-aperture radar (SAR) technology for microsatellites providing expanded access to reliable and timely earth observation data, today published the first radar image obtained with the ICEYE-X1 SAR satellite. The image depicts Noatak National Preserve, Alaska, on Monday Jan. 15, at 21:47 UTC. ICEYE-X1 is the world’s first SAR satellite under 100 kg, launched less than a week ago on Jan. 12, 2018 on ISRO’s PSLV-C40 from Satish Dhawan Space Center in India.
A synthetic-aperture radar (SAR) instrument sends its own radio waves to the ground, creating an image from the energy that scatters back to the instrument. Given this, SAR sensors can provide imaging of the Earth during both day and night, regardless of cloud cover and weather condition.
[...] The full image transmitted to the ground from ICEYE-X1 exceeded 1.2GB of raw data and spans an area of roughly 80 x 40 km on the ground. ICEYE-X1 obtained the image in the span of ten seconds, traveling at a speed of more than 7.5 km/s and at an altitude exceeding 500 km. Matching what ICEYE simulated prior to the launch, the final data resolution from the first satellite reaches 10 x 10 meters.
Source: ICEYE press release
(Score: 2, Interesting) by anubi on Thursday January 18 2018, @12:46PM
That's some neat work, guys! I can see where you are getting some really precise topographical data... help us see things like where stresses are building up on subduction zones and subterranean problems, like magma building up.
These are the kind of things that make an engineering career worthwhile.
Quite happy to see you guys get this thing working!
"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]