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TerraSAR-X provides excellent radar pictures
By Matthias Gründer
Just four days had passed since the launch on 15 June 2007 before the German Aerospace Research Establishment (DLR) ground station in Neustrelitz was already receiving excellent data from the radar satellite during a first test operation. Although everyone involved on the project had infinite trust in their “baby”, none of them had expected quality of this kind. The approximately six month test and validation phase had not even begun at this point, but they could scarcely imagine that the data could be any better than it was on that first day. Did they really need another six months before work could officially start?
“Our satellite is a very complex remote sensing system,” says Jörg Hermann, Managing Director of Infoterra GmbH in Friedrichshafen, “which is why calibration of all the sensors takes time.” The test programme is following a complicated sequence, so they do not want to allow themselves to be misled by first appearances. Somewhere an error could be lurking which might have a negative impact on future work. They are therefore patiently going through the planned sequence of steps up to the Operational Readiness Review in December, and only then will the actual work for which the company was founded back in 2001 finally get under way.
Infoterra is a fully-owned subsidiary of EADS Astrium GmbH and possesses the exclusive commercial rights to the data from the radar satellite. Under the terms of the contract, Astrium had undertaken within the framework of a public-private partnership with the DLR to found a company, to which commercial marketing of the data and geoinformation products and services based thereon would be transferred. This would ensure the commercial success and financing of the second satellite, TerraSAR-X-2. Today the company has a workforce of 35 and is part of the Infoterra Group, which employs about 300 people world-wide.
“We have been winning customers since 2004, and they can already access about 3,000 radar images that we are making available to them free of charge,” says Jörg Herrmann. Some 1,500 such customers in over 40 countries are already waiting impatiently to be able to finally use the data they want. For this purpose over the last three years the company has set up a global distribution network, which currently boasts over 50 distributors in 52 countries, who are now undergoing in-depth training. A first conference, for the Europe/Russia region, was held for this purpose in November.
A second group of Infoterra partners consists of software providers of image processing programs. Many customers will only receive the raw data, which they will then analyse with software tailored specifically to their needs. Providers must be found to test their programs and then make them available to the potential users. The first of these will now be in Japan, where two receiving stations have already been installed, and after a short time all the others will then be able to receive their data sets.
Large-scale, radar-based mapping projects all over the world already feature routinely in the business activities of Infoterra. In the absence of the satellite data, data from aircraft campaigns has been used up to now. Customers can choose between image products, geoinformation, data access services and numerous other applications. Some of these are still under development, but the interested parties are already able to secure data access rights.
As well as customers from the private sector, there are also a large number of users in official bodies at all different decision-making levels. The biggest customer so far is the EU, which operates an earth monitoring programme from different sources. This monitoring programme is used mainly as a vehicle for environmental monitoring and disaster control, but other uses are territorial development, improvement of transport etc. etc. Such themes are handled by about 60 companies throughout Europe, coordinated by Infoterra GmbH. Supplemented by terrestrial and statistical data, for example, a sealing map of Europe has been commissioned by the European Environmental Agency, so that water quality and the availability of this valuable resource can be analysed in the future.
This work entails the active exchange of relevant data between a whole host of suppliers. Because Infoterra's parent company, Astrium, also holds a 40 percent stake in French distributor Spotimage, which markets the data from the SPOT satellites, cooperation is readily forthcoming when necessary. If need be, mutual support is also available between Infoterra and the operators of the Italian radar monitoring system, CosmoSkyMed, who offer even better temporal resolution, with four satellites at their disposal.
“Despite this, there is no razor-sharp competition here,” Hermann assures us, “as the Italians' products are geared more towards the military, whereas we are more commercially oriented.” There is historical common ground in the radar technology between the specialists of the two countries, who have already demonstrated their world class on several shuttle missions. The best known example of this was flight STS-99 in February 2000, the Shuttle Radar Topography Mission, as a result of which amongst other things it was possible to generate a new world map with the aid of the German-Italian radar system, X-SAR.
“We are mapping out the earth's surface solely in a customer-oriented manner,” Herman stresses, “Which means that a customer tells us the area it wants monitored and we prepare the images at the earliest opportunity – when the satellite next overflies that area.” In other words, data for the entire earth's surface will not be stocked away in the hope that someone will ask for it at some point. This would disproportionately exceed the storage capacity. “Stockpiling is carried out only in parts of central Europe where we can be certain that there will be demand before long.” Time series, that is, images of the same places on the earth's surface taken at intervals, from which one can draw conclusions about seasonal or climatic changes, are also very valuable. Such data sets can earn good money.
For this reason, cooperation with other providers is part of the remit of Customer Service. If, for example, a user needs some up-to-date date very quickly but the satellite is currently flying over the other hemisphere, the desired images can be procured through data exchange. For Infoterra the situation will improve still further when, according to current plans, the second radar satellite is launched in September 2009. The two satellites will then fly on virtually identical orbits but slightly staggered, and form the TanDEM-X constellation, enhancing the accuracy of all the data. This mission will cost around Euro85 million, most of which will flow in from TerraSAR-X. This year Infoterra can already boast a sales volume of Euro17 million, and it is aiming to double that figure in 2008. The goal of a tandem satellite capability is thus within tangible reach.
From page 82 of FLUG REVUE 1/2008
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