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German Radar Satellite Lifts Off Tonight

Posted by kdawson on from the ready-for-my-closeup dept.

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."

25 of 65 comments (clear)

  1. Another proprietary dataset? by chrb · · Score: 4, Interesting

    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.

    1. Re:Another proprietary dataset? by 2Y9D57 · · Score: 4, Informative

      Infoterra GmbH will be responsible for commercial sales of the data. The German Aerospace Center deal with the scientific utilization.

    2. Re:Another proprietary dataset? by 2Y9D57 · · Score: 3, Informative

      The German Aerospace Center deal with the scientific utilization.

      and paying a license fee

      data sets will be provided under COFUR (Cost Of Fulfilling User Request) conditions

    3. Re:Another proprietary dataset? by the_other_chewey · · Score: 4, Informative

      data sets will be provided under COFUR (Cost Of Fulfilling User Request) conditions

      ...to parties that submit a request with a good reason and get it approved.

      You can't just show up with a bunch of hard drives and ask for the data, even if you're
      prepared to pay for costs that would produce.

      ESA (and ESA-related, TerraSAR is German-only) projects have a long and annoying history
      of keeping their data under wraps despite public funding and no objections by the scientific
      parties (priorities of potential discoveries matter) involved.

      Until this changes, it's still SRTM data for everyone.

    4. Re:Another proprietary dataset? by Hurricane78 · · Score: 3, Interesting

      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? :/

      --
      Any sufficiently advanced intelligence is indistinguishable from stupidity.
    5. Re:Another proprietary dataset? by jeti · · Score: 2, Insightful

      A substantial part of the project cost is shouldered by private companies, not taxpayers.

  2. ah, the logic of it by yyxx · · Score: 2, Funny

    So, let me see whether I get this right:

    Google taking street photos = bad (according to Germans).

    The German government making high resolution elevation maps from space = good (according to Germans).

    Where can I complain if I don't want my private property mapped by the German government?

    1. Re:ah, the logic of it by fatnickc · · Score: 3, Funny

      Apparently Google's suggestion that people build a wall if they didn't want photos to be taken didn't go down so well

    2. Re:ah, the logic of it by 2Y9D57 · · Score: 5, Funny

      Where can I complain if I don't want my private property mapped by the German government?

      Don't worry. The reflection from your tinfoil hat will blind the radar over your house.

    3. Re:ah, the logic of it by dov_0 · · Score: 5, Insightful

      The elevation above sea level of the land one lives on is hardly personal or private information... A photograph of one's house, car, children playing on the lawn etc could be considered to be somewhat different.

      --
      sudo mount --milk --sugar /cup/tea /mouth /etc/init.d/relax start
    4. Re:ah, the logic of it by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

      This isn't a high resolution photo form the street through your living room window. It has a 12m (40ft) resolution. If you have something on your property that is more than 40ft long, I suspect people may already be aware of it.

    5. Re:ah, the logic of it by hedwards · · Score: 3, Funny

      You must be one fat bastard to be showing up on a 12 meter pixel pitch image. I'm really curious as to how you get around if you're being covered by multiple pixels.

    6. Re:ah, the logic of it by EdIII · · Score: 2, Funny

      Some of us here on Slashdot will take up multiple pixels, but only when we get excited.

    7. Re:ah, the logic of it by yyxx · · Score: 2, Insightful

      You're insane if you're comparing this to Google Street View.

      The kind of insane objections people make to Street View also can be made here: "it's my personal property, nobody has a right to image it", "people are making money with this data, I want my cut", and "people may be using the data to plan crimes against my property".

      Why do you think those objections should apply to a "PHOTO" but not an "ELEVATION MAP"?

  3. Bloody typical by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    It's launching in Europe on the 21st June but on the 20th in the USA. Why is the good shit always released in the US first?

    </typicalslashdotrant>

  4. 40ft / pixel resolution is not tha high resolution by clevelandguru · · Score: 2, Informative

    At 40ft per pixel resolution, a normal 2 floored house will show as a single pixel above ground.

  5. Re:40ft / pixel resolution is not tha high resolut by Brett+Buck · · Score: 2, Interesting

    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.

  6. Re:40ft / pixel resolution is not tha high resolut by hedwards · · Score: 2

    I've no doubt that they could've done much better. I suspect they didn't want to spend 20 years doing it.

  7. Hope they image Area 51 by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Funny

    and also Area 51A!

  8. Zee Germans are coming? by denzacar · · Score: 3, Funny

    Poor rabbits...

    --
    Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
    1. Re:Zee Germans are coming? by 2Y9D57 · · Score: 2

      Poor rabbits...

      Not, rabbits -- hares.

      With stupidity, the gods themselves struggle in vain.

  9. Re:His mama is so fat... by M8e · · Score: 4, Informative

    that she can be identified on a 40 ft resolution height map.

  10. Re:what about Google? by 2Y9D57 · · Score: 3, Informative

    No idea what other advantages radar has

    It works through cloud cover and at night.

  11. Re:40ft / pixel resolution is not tha high resolut by Kjella · · Score: 3, Interesting

    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...

    --
    Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
  12. In the USA: yes, in Germany: no by saibot834 · · Score: 2, Informative

    In the USA, all government works are in the public domain, which leads to NASA images and others being usable by the public and due to the copyright status, also by Wikipedia.

    In Germany, a different concept was chosen. The general idea is that mostly private corporation want to use works by the government, e.g. publishers of books, maps, etc. In order to give a bit of the money spend on the works back to the taxpayer, everyone who wants to use those images has to pay royalties. This results in slightly less costs for the taxpayer, which is exactly the goal of that concept.

    However, this approach is no longer viable. In the digital age, everyone is a potential user of works by the government, including works like maps and satellite images. NGOs like Wikimedia Deutschland (the German chapter of Wikimedia and supporter of the Wikipedia project) are lobbying to free those images. But the laws are, as usual, at least 10 years behind the technological and sociotechnical development.