TanDEM-X: Mission Status and Science Activities

• Published in: IGARSS 2022 - 2022 IEEE International Geoscience and Remote Sensing Symposium
• Main Authors: Hajnsek, Irena, Moreira, Alberto, Zink, Manfred, Buckreuss, Stefan, Kraus, Thomas, Bachmann, Markus, Busche, Thomas Edmund
• Format: Conference Object
• Language: unknown
• Published: IEEE 2022
• Subjects: Radarkonzepte; Ice; permafrost
• Online Access: https://elib.dlr.de/192963/; https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/9883051

The paper provides an up-to-date overview of the German TanDEM-X satellite mission status and its ongoing science activities. The global digital elevation model (DEM) of TanDEM-X became available in 2016 and surpassed all expectations: It has 99.9% coverage, 12-m posting, absolute height accuracy of approximately 1 m and a relative height error (standard deviation) of 0.8 m. This unique data set has been available since then for commercial and scientific applications. In addition, a low-resolution version of the global digital elevation model with 90-m posting has been released for free download for scientific applications. Since 2017 new interferometric acquisitions have been started with the goal to generate a global change layer which will register all the changes of the Earth topography occurred since the first acquisitions of TanDEM-X. The acquisition for the global change layer was completed by mid-2020. Since then a new science phase of TanDEM-X with a focus on interferometric acquisitions over forest, ice sheets and permafrost regions are ongoing.