Airborne Synthetic Aperture Radar

Status

Status
Retired

The Airborne Synthetic Aperture Radar (AIRSAR) was an all-weather imaging tool able to penetrate through clouds and collect data at night. The longer wavelengths could also penetrate into the forest canopy and in extremely dry areas, through thin sand cover and dry snow pack. AIRSAR was designed and built by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) which also manages the AIRSAR project. AIRSAR served as a NASA radar technology testbed for demonstrating new radar technology and acquiring data for the development of radar processing techniques and applications. As part of NASA’s Earth Science Enterprise, AIRSAR first flew in 1988, and flew its last mission in 2004.

Instrument Type
Radar
Measurements
Radar backscatter
Aircraft
DC-8 - AFRC
Point(s) of Contact
Yunling Lou
(POC; PI)
Range of Measurement
Ground
Instrument Pointing
Downwards pointing but not directly downwards
Pointing Angles
20-50
Horizontal Resolution
10.00 m (at 8 km)
Notes
Multi-frequency and multi-polarization radar data and acquires data in interferometric modes
TRL
9
Website
http://airsar.jpl.nasa.gov/

 

Disclaimer: This material is being kept online for historical purposes. Though accurate at the time of publication, it is no longer being updated. The page may contain broken links or outdated information, and parts may not function in current web browsers. Visit https://espo.nasa.gov for information about our current projects.