The PALSAR-2 is an active microwave sensor aboard the Advance Land Observing Satellite-2 (ALOS-2). The sensor operated at L-band with HH and VV polarisation (HV and VH polarisations are optional) with beam steering in elevation. The ScanSAR mode allowed obtaining a wider swath than conventional SARs. ALOS was launched on 24th May 2014 into a sun-synchronous orbit at the altitude of 628km, providing a spatial resolution of 10m for the fine resolution mode (swath width of 70km) and 100m for the ScanSAR mode (swath width of 350km). The repeat cycle is 14 days and the local time at descending node was about 12:00pm. PALSAR-2 data for the SMAPEx campaigns will be requested by collaborators in Tokyo University, Japan.

The PALSAR-2 has three modes:

-Spotlight mode

The most detailed observation mode with 1 by 3 meters resolution (observation width of 25 km).

-Strip Map mode

A high-resolution mode with the choice of 3, 6 or 10 meters resolution (observation width of 50 or 70km).

-ScanSAR mode

A broad area observation mode with observation width of 350km or 490km, and resolution of 100m or 60m respectively.

Details on the specifications of PALSAR-2 are available from here.