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Download product sheet pdf

Catalog of COSMO-SkyMed imagery

Demo products

COSMO-SkyMed

COSMO-SkyMed Overview

The COSMO-SkyMed system is a constellation of four radar satellites for Earth observation for dual (civil and military) use. Its purpose is to monitor the globe for the sake of emergency prevention (management of environmental risks), strategy (defence and national security), and scientific and commercial purposes, providing data on a global scale.

COSMO-SkyMed is at the forefront of global technology and uses high-resolution radar to observe the Earth day or night, regardless of weather conditions. The three satellites needed to complete the constellation will be launched by the end of 2009.

  • 4 satellite SAR constellation

  • Right & left looking acquisition

  • Short revisit time

  • Rapid response

  • Very high resolution - from 1 metre

  • High geo-location accuracy

  • All-weather day/night global coverage

  • High imaging capacity

  • Interferometric & polarmetric capability

COSMO-SkyMed Mission

Launch schedule: The first satellite in the constellation was successfully launched on June 7 2007

Flexible, multi-mode SAR sensor

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COSMO-SkyMed Product Details

Technical documentation

COSMO-SkyMed Product Handbook

COSMO-SkyMed User Guide

COSMO-SkyMed compatible software

COSMO-SkyMed Radiometric Image Calibration

Multi-polarmetric and multi-temporal capabilities enable many civilian and advanced defence applications. The sensor can acquire images of the earth in ScanSAR mode (large coverage with a medium to coarse spatial resolution) or in Stripmap mode (medium coverage with a fine resolution) or Spotlight mode (small coverage with metric resolution).

Imaging Capacity

Each satellite can acquire, daily:

  • Up to 75 SPOTLIGHT images
  • Up to 375 STRIPMAP or 150 SCANSAR images

A daily total of 1800 images

  • 1500 Wide Field
  • 300 Narrow Field
  • 560 GB/day

Interferometric capability

  • One-day interferometry
  • Tandem-like interferometry mission
  • Optimum mean revisit
  • Flexible acquisition; time delay of:
         - one day (pairs 1-2, 2-3)
         - two days (1-3, 3-4)
         - three days (2-4)
         - four days (1-4)

Tandem Interferometry configuration

Same ground track

  • 2 satellites separated in phase and LTAN
  • Different orbital planes, different nodes => ‘same'
    ground track, adjusted to interferometric baseline
    (100s of metres)
  • Best compromise of decorrelation time & safe operation

Polarmetric products

  • Better target recognition
  • STRIPMAP mode in PINGPONG configuration
  • 15m resolution, 30km swath

Ground segment

World-wide

Fixed (C-MAPS) & mobile (D-MAPS) terminals

World-wide network of 20 GPS stations improve geolocation accuracy

External stations (X band + S band for TT&C)

  • Kiruna

  • Cordoba

The systems operating mode re-configurable in three ways (routine, crisis and very urgent) allows the system to respond to different needs in terms of required programming latency. In the first mode (routine) the requests of the users pertaining image acquisitions are planned and sent to the constellation once a day. In the second mode (crisis) this operation is done twice a day while the third mode (very urgent) is asynchronous, allowing the servicing of an image acquisition request with the minimum possible latency.

The system can satisfy a User Request in the case of the first level of SAR standard products in as little as 72 hours for the system working in routine mode, 36 hours for the crisis mode and 18 hours for the very urgent mode