German Radar Satellite Lifts Off Tonight

2Y9D57 writes "Germany's new TanDEM-X radar satellite is scheduled to lift off from Baikonur Cosmodrome at 04:15 Berlin time on 21 June — that's 10:14 pm Eastern today (20 June). Flying in close formation with its twin satellite, TerraSAR-X, TanDEM-X will generate the most consistent and highest-resolution digital elevation map ever of the Earth — 12m = 40ft. pixel pitch. It will take three years to image all 150 million square kilometers (58 million square miles), in the process generating more than 350 TB of raw data. Here's where to go as the time approaches for live streaming."

Comments

Another proprietary dataset?

[chrb]

Unfortunately, despite being partly publically funded by the German taxpayer, it appears the complete dataset will be considered proprietary for the commercial exploitation of Infoterra GmbH.

Re:Another proprietary dataset?

[Hurricane78]

Waddaya mean “commercial sales’? It’s paid by the taxpayer, and so everyone of us (writing as a German taxpayer) must have access to it. Or else I think it is pretty much illegal.

And if everyone has access to it, and has already paid for it, who’s gonna pay for it again?
Can people really be that stupid to do this? ... ...who am I kidding? :/

Re:40ft / pixel resolution is not tha high resolut

[Brett Buck]

It's decent for SAR. Of course people have done *much much better* before. 40 feet for the entire Earth is a decent goal for civilian/commercial uses.

Re:40ft / pixel resolution is not tha high resolut

[Kjella]

They can actually do much better, from what I gather on this site. Their highest 300 MHz high resolution spotlight mode will do down to 1.1x1.1 meter, but the main mode that'll sweep the earth is significantly coarser. Still in relative terms I must say the development here is huge...