TOWARDS INSAR EVERYWHERE, ALL THE TIME, WITH SENTINEL-1

Abstract

Sentinel-1A was launched in April 2014, and has been collecting data routinely over more than one year. Sentinel-1B is set for launch on 22 April 2016. The Sentinel-1 constellation has several advantages over previous radar missions for InSAR applications: (1) Data are being acquired systematically for tectonic and volcanic areas, (2) Images cover a wide footprint, 250 km from near to far range in Interferometric Wide Swath (TOPS) mode, (3) Small perpendicular and temporal baselines greatly improve interferometric coherence at C-band, (4) Data are freely available to all users, (5) The mission is planned to be operational for 20 years, with 1C and 1D planned for future launches. These features enable us to map geological processes occurring in any place at anytime using InSAR. We will review progress within COMET towards our ultimate goal of building a fully-automated processing system that provides deformation results and derived products to the wide InSAR and Geophysics communities. In addition to high-resolution-ECMWFbased atmospheric correction model, we will show results of a systematic analysis of interferometric coherence in tectonic and volcanic areas, and discuss the future goals and timeline for the COMET InSAR automated processing system.