RADARSAT Constellation Mission

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RADARSAT Constellation Mission

• Daniel De Lisle
• on behalf of Steve Iris (RCM Mission Manager)

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RCM Key Mission Drivers

• Continuity of C-Band SAR for Operational Users
• Improved revisit over wide areas
• Responsive Ground Segment (tasking and latency)
• Smaller, more cost efficient satellite
  development
• Improved reliability (i.e. redundancy and
  scalability)
• Evolution to wider Operational use
• Government-owned and operated

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• Mission imaging requirements are tailored to
  cover the areas identified by the government
  users, including both Canadian and international
  imaging for Canadian users.
• Allocations are made for extra imaging capacity
  that may be used to fulfill international
  commitments.
• RCM data are expected to dramatically enhance
  Canada's ability to manage resources and the
  environment and improve security by providing an
  operational surveillance system.
• The RCM will be a fully Government of Canada
  (GoC) owned and operated mission focused on
  meeting GoC User Departments needs and
  requirements in three Core Use Areas
• Maritime Surveillance
• Disaster Management
• Ecosystem Monitoring

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Core Use Areas
Maritime Surveillance
Disaster Management
Environmental Monitoring

• Ice Iceberg Monitoring
• Pollution Monitoring
• Vessel Detection
• Including AIS
• Marine Winds

• Forestry
• Protected Areas Wildlife Habitat
• Agriculture
• Wetlands
• Coastal Change

• Flood Monitoring
• Windstorms
• Earthquakes
• Landslides
• Volcanic Activity
• Permafrost

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Maritime Surveillance

• Ice Monitoring
• Assuring safe year round navigation in the
  ice-covered of the Arctic, the Great Lakes and
  the east coast of Canada by providing valuable
  information about ice conditions. ScanSAR Wide
  data at a resolution of 100m twice daily
• Ship monitoring
• Identifying and monitoring all ships 96 hours
  before they enter Canadian waters or ports. AIS
  capability
• Marine winds
• Wind speed and direction monitoring
• Oil pollution monitoring
• Enhanced potential to support oil spill control
  and cleansing. Contributing to ISTOP

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Ecosystem Monitoring

• Forestry
• Clearcut harvest with partial cut detection,
  forest typing, biomass estimation, and
  disturbance detection
• Agriculture
• Monitoring crop conditions, soil properties and
  by mapping tillage activities
• Wetlands
• Provide regular coverage on a multi-year cycle
  of all Canadian wetland areas for mapping
  activities
• Coastal Change monitoring
• Regular monitoring of Canadian coastlines with
  focus on most sensitive areas

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Disaster Management

• Flood Monitoring
• Floods damage assessment and rescue support.
  ScanSAR Wide or Narrow at medium resolution
  (50-100m).
• Windstorms
• Contributing to the Hurricane Watch program by
  providing daily global coverage of the storms
  from space
• Earthquake
• Frequent acquisitions with a swath of at least
  200km over tectonic active areas to develop
  high-resolution maps of earthquake deformations
• Landslide
• 4-day CCD using SAR interferometry to provide
  early warning of potential disasters and monitor
  critical infrastructure
• Volcano-surface deformation monitoring
• Permafrost- SAR interferometry

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• User Science Team
• The UST was formed at the early stage of the
  project (2005-phase A) to engage end user
  department to ensure requirements would be
  addressed and capture in the mission development.
• User Requirements Document
• UST primary work was to develop the URD
  including inputs from Canadian Government
  Departments stakeholders.
• Mission Requirements Document
• URD was used as the input to the development of
  the MRD. This hi-level document is keeping
  updated to ensure that the end-to-end system
  meets the mission objectives and user
  requirements.

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Application Geographic Coverage Revisit Resolution End Use
Ice and iceberg monitoring Great Lakes Coastal zones (3 oceans) Shipping lanes Daily Medium Ice charts
Marine winds Great Lakes Coastal zones (2 oceans) Twice daily Low Marine weather and weather forecasting
Oil pollution Shipping lanes Coastal zones Daily Medium ISTOP (Marine pollution) program Spill response
Ship detection 1200nm (above 42 N) Daily or better Medium to high Domain awareness product
Forestry Forest areas of Canada Annual Medium State of the forest report
Protected areas and wildlife habitat Parks and sensitive areas Annual Medium to High Change map
Agriculture Cultivated land in Canada Weekly (seasonal) Medium (30m) Crop classification, crop yield products, tillage practice product
Wetlands Wetlands in Canada Annual Medium to High Change map
Coastal change Coastlines 3 highly sensitive Monthly Low to Medium Change map
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Imaging Modes
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Imaging Modes
1 Even if there is no requirement on Quad-Pol
mode, here is the performance currently estimated
by MDA - range resolution 8m (approximately) -
azimuth resolution 6m - swath width 20km -
accessible swath 250km centring on 35 deg.
incidence - NESZ lt-25dB  
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Arctic Daily -- June Nov. Open Water Areas
Arctic Weekly Dec.- May Daily June Nov.
Inland Lakes Weekly Oct. to June
West Coast Daily -- Year Round
GL, East Coast Nfld. Daily Dec. - August
Ice Monitoring
GL East Coast Daily -- June-November
Oil Pollution
Arctic Daily -- June Nov. Open Water Areas
West Coast Daily -- Year Round
GL East Coast Daily -- May-November
Marine Winds
Ships Detection
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Average Daily Coverage of Marine AOIs
Accessibility with 3 satellites of Cdn marine
zones at Medium 50m resolution
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4-day coverage of AAFC AOIs with all ascending
passes using the Med Res 30m mode.
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Standard Coverage Concept

• Issue
• Large geographic and temporal overlaps in Users
  and Applications requirements
• Various preferred imaging modes
• Approach
• Analyse User imaging requirements spatially and
  temporally over the annual cycle to determine a
  "feasible" imaging plan, with agreed upon
  compromises in overlapping zones
• Result ? Standard Coverage
• Collections of data acquired routinely in
  harmonized and de-conflicted imaging modes
  intended to optimize and maximize the utility of
  the data across all User requirements

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Simulated Standard Coverage for maritime
surveillance
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Coherent Change Detection

• Short-period (4-day) Coherent Change Detection
  (CCD) will be a unique capability
• ScanSAR (125 km) and Stripmap (25 km) modes
  optimized for CCD
• Requires tight Orbital Tube maintenance ? 100 to
  200 m specification

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Compact Polarization
Sea Ice Characterization
Sea Ice Typing soRH vs q
m-d Composite
Source CCRS EC-CIS
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Compact Polarization
AgricultureCrop Classification
m-d Composite
Classification Seasonal Results
Source AAFC CCRS
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• Classes of Products
• Raw Products
• Raw Radar data in FRED format
• Image Products
• Processed SAR images
• Variety of processing levels
• single-look complex products,
• multi-looked power-detected geo-referenced
  products
• geo-coded products
• Include a Doppler Grid with 2 km spacing
• Same format as RADARSAT-2 GeoTIFF images with
  xml meta-data
• Information Products
• Ship detection products xml files with
• Time, Location, Confidence measure, Estimated RCS
  and length

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• Global Access Can image anywhere except an area
  within 1500 km of the south pole (right-looking
  only)
• Global Revisit 24 hours on average (any point
  can be imaged 12 times in 12 days)
• Real-time downlink over Canadian maritime areas
  of interest
• Most products ready for delivery within minutes
  of downlink to a Canadian Data Reception Facility
• Capability to downlink data acquired over
  Canadian Maritime Areas of Interest within 3
  hours of acquisition outside Canadian station
  mask
• Capability to downlink data acquired over
  Canadian Land Areas of Interest within 2 hours of
  acquisition
• Products available within 48 hours of receipt of
  an order for an acquisition anywhere in the world
• Fast tasking 4 hours

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Data Policy

• RCM Priority Roles
• Serve public interest by responding to
  requirements of Canadian government departments
  and Canadian non-commercial users
• Pursue commercial thrust for data distribution
  and value-added services
• Support science and applications development by
  industry and academia
• Monitoring long term scientific phenomena
• RCM focuses on operational users for which
• Standard Coverages will be defined

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Data Policy Considerations

• Regulation
• RCM is subject to the Cdn Remote Sensing Space
  Systems Act (RSSSA) which will determine what
  data may become public and who can access RCM
  data more generally.
• Within limitations of the RSSSA and other
  security elements
• Standard Coverages serve all operational users
• Most of their data would become public
• RCM Archives are intended to be Free and Open,
  accessible on-line through an on-line catalogue
  (except for commercial and sensitive data)

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Data Utilization Applications Plan

• Ensure Optimum use of the data when system
  becomes operational for Canadian Government Users
• Facilitate the integration of RCM data into
  existing operational applications of RADARSAT-1
  and RADARSAT-2.
• Support the integration of RCM data into
  applications that have been demonstrated to the
  point where they are fully integrated into the
  operations of OGDs in support of their mandates
• Support science, research and development
  activities for potential new applications or
  improve existing ones.
• Facilitate the utilisation and access to data,
  product and services produced by RCM to users.

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International Collaboration RCM Sentinel-1

• GoC Users want easier access to multiple SAR
  missions
• Both missions are C-Band SARs at the same
  frequency
• Collaboration could improve GoC Users coverage,
  reduce latencies, and provide complementary
  data/modes
• Simplified access and synergy with Sentinel-1
  could alleviate potential data acquisition
  conflicts within RCM
• Collaboration would maximize the use and
  potential benefit to respective Users of both
  RCM and Sentinel-1 data

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RCM Sentinel-1 Collaboration
The following collaborative activities are
currently explored Joint / integrated
pre-defined acquisition plans (complementarities
in observations / modes, increased revisit,
etc.) Level 1 Product format Harmonization of
catalogue interface Development of common
tools Harmonized communication, joint
publications etc. Joint calibration working
group is being set up
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Summary

• RADARSAT Constellation Mission is designed to
  continue/enhance the use of SAR to support
  Government of Canada operations as well as
  internationally
• Support to government users for application
  development
• Compact Polarization , Multi-pass/Frequent
  Revisit and 4-day CCD provide opportunities for
  new information and applications
• Opportunities for synergy and collaboration with
  Sentinel-1 are being pursued seriously

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Thank You !