The RADARSAT-2 was developed by the Canadian Space Agency, aiming to provide commercial radar data for marine surveillance, ice monitoring, disaster management, environmental monitoring, resource management and mapping in Canada and around the world. The only payload of RADARSAT-2 is a C-band (centre frequency of 5.405 GHz) SAR with capability of providing HH, VV, HV, and VH polarisation. The RADARSAT-2 was launched in December 2007 into an orbit at the altitude of 798 km, providing a range of spatial resolutions from 3 m for the spotlight mode (swath width of 18 km) to 100 m for the ScanSAR Wide mode (swath width of 500 km). The repeat cycle is 24 days and the local overpass time was about 6:00am and 6:00pm. RADARSAT-2 data for the SMAPEx-5 campaign will be requested by collaborators in Istituto di Studi sui Sistemi Intelligenti per l’Automazione (ISSIA), Italy.
Mission |
RADARSAT-2 |
Sensor |
Microwave C-band radar |
Operational modes |
Spotlight mode |
Design life |
7 years |
Orbit |
sun synchronous 798km, 14.29 orbits per day |
Frequency (GHz) |
5.405 |
Polarisation |
HH, VV, HV, VH |