The NASA/JPL Airborne Synthetic Aperture Radar's 1996 PacRim deployment

Abstract

In November and December 1996, the NASA/JPL Airborne Synthetic Aperture Radar System (AIRSAR) embarked on a seven-week campaign to several Pacific Rim countries. This mission was jointly organized by NASA, Australia's Office of Space Science and Application, and University of New South Wales. The major purpose of the mission is to establish a collaborative effort in the area of radar remote sensing application between the United States and the Pacific Rim countries. SAR data were acquired for both U.S. researchers as well as the participating countries. In addition to Hawaii, the authors imaged areas of interest in New Zealand, Australia, Papua New Guinea, Malaysia, Brunei, the Philippines, Taiwan, Thailand, and Cambodia including coastal regions of some countries. The target areas of this multi-frequency, polarimetric and interferometric SAR system included volcanoes, sites for studies in geology, hydrology, and land use mapping, and forested mountains to generate height maps of rugged and inaccessible areas.