Development of a Radarsat-1 interferometric baseline catalog

With the improved orbit maintenance of the Radarsat-1 satellite, there has been an increased interest in the interferometric SAR (InSAR) processing of Radarsat data. One of the most vital parameters in the selection process for InSAR processing is the baseline. The baseline indicates whether an interferometric image pair is suitable for a certain application. As interferometric baselines cannot be part of the regular metadata that are attached to a single data set, there is a need to provide this kind of essential information for SAR interferometric processing to user community in searchable and easily accessible form. This paper describes the development of an interferometric baseline catalog for the Radarsat-1 satellite at the Alaska Satellite Facility. The baselines are calculated from metadata information in the archive. Based on the orbit information in form of state vectors, the Doppler centroid and the slant range, a baseline can be estimated on a frame basis. The baselines for all existing image pairs in the archive are stored in a database that serves as backbone of a Web interface.