Snapshots of Antarctica from RADARSAT-1

Carried aloft by a NASA rocket launched from Vandenburg Air Force Base on November 4, 1995, the Canadian Radarsat-l is equipped with a C-band synthetic aperture radar (SAR) capable of acquiring high resolution (25 m) images of Earth´s surface day or night and under all weather conditions. Along with the attributes familiar to researchers working with SAR data from the European Space Agency´s Earth Remote Sensing Satellite and the Japanese Earth Resources Satellite, Radarsat-l has enhanced flexibility to collect data using a variety of swath widths, incidence angles and resolutions. Most importantly, for scientists interested in Antarctica, Radarsat-l can be maneuvered in orbit to rotate the normally right-looking SAR to a left-looking mode. This `Antarctic Mode´ provides for the first time a nearly instantaneous, high-resolution view of the entirety of Antarctica on each of two proposed mappings separated by 2 years. The first, Antarctic Imaging Campaign began on September 9, 1997 and was successfully concluded on October 20, 1997