NASA's Airborne SAR (AIRSAR) was a prototype Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) earth-observation project equipped with synthetic aperture radar (SAR) — an all-weather imaging tool able to penetrate clouds and collect data at night. Two of the AIRSAR imaging modes used could penetrate into the forest canopy, dry snow cover, and, in extremely dry areas, sand.
AIRSAR was a NASA radar technology testbed to demonstrate new radar technology and acquire data for developing radar processing techniques and applications.
The data are open and freely available to download.
| Dataset Property | P-Band | L-Band | C-Band |
|---|---|---|---|
| Temporal Coverage | 1988-2004 | 1988-2004 | 1988-2004 |
| Spatial Coverage | Worldwide mission-specific sites | Worldwide mission-specific sites | Worldwide mission-specific sites |
| Frequency/Wavelength | 0.45 GHz/67 cm | 1.26 GHz/23 cm | 5.31 GHz/5.7 cm |
| Polarization | Full | Full | Full |
| Range Resolution | 7.5 m | 3.75 m | 1.875 m |
| Swath Width | 10 km | 10 km | 10 km |
| Off-Nadir Angle | 20-60° | 20-60° | 20-60° |
| File Format | AIRSAR (proprietary), JPG | AIRSAR (proprietary), JPG | AIRSAR (proprietary), JPG |
| Download Information | Data Discovery | Data Discovery | Data Discovery |
| Date Published | 1988-2004 | 1988-2004 | 1988-2004 |