WMO OSCAR | Details for Instrument PALSAR-3

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Instrument: PALSAR-3

Instrument details

Acronym	PALSAR-3
Full name	Phased-Array L-band Synthetic Aperture Radar - 3
Purpose	High-resolution all-weather soil moisture and ocean surface features observation
Short description	L-band SAR, frequency 1.27 GHz, multi-polarisation and variable pointing/resolution
Background	Evolution of PALSAR-2 on ALOS-2. Improved swath
Scanning Technique	Side-looking, 7.3-58.8° off-nadir, swath 200 km depending on operation mode
Resolution	3 to 25 m, depending on operation mode
Coverage / Cycle	Global coverage in minimum 14 days depending on operation mode (duty cycle 30 min/orbit)
Mass		Power	Data Rate

Providing Agency	JAXA
Instrument Maturity	Flown on an R&D satellite
Utilization Period:	2024 to 2031
Last update:	2023-11-20

Detailed characteristics

Satellites this instrument is flying on

Note: a red tag indicates satellites no longer operational, a green tag indicates operational satellites, a blue tag indicates future satellites

Advanced Land Observing Satellite (JAXA)
- ALOS-4 (DAICHI-4) (see instrument status) Jul 2024 - 2031

Instrument classification

Earth observation instrument
Active and radio-occultation sensor
Imaging radar (SAR)

WIGOS Subcomponents

Subcomponent 1
SAR imagers and altimeters
SAR imager
Subcomponent 3
Radar and lidar for vegetation mapping
Low-frequency SAR for vegetation mapping

Mission objectives

Primary mission objectives

Biomass
Fraction of vegetated land
Land cover
Land surface topography
Oil spill cover
Sea-ice cover
Sea-ice type
Soil moisture at surface

Evaluation of Measurements

The following list indicates which measurements can typically be retrieved from this category of instrument. To see a full Gap Analysis by Variable, click on the respective variable.

Note: table can be sorted by clicking on the column headers
Note: * Primary mission objective.

Search:

Variable	Relevance for measuring this variable	Operational limitations	Explanation
Glacier cover	1 - primary	Long time for mapping.	L-band SAR for accurate boundary detection
Sea-ice cover*	1 - primary	No specific limitation.	L-band SAR
Biomass*	2 - very high	Index only.. Infrequent coverage.	L-band sensitive to total biomass
Glacier motion	2 - very high	Infrequent coverage.	L-band SAR for interferometry between images taken at time intervals
Glacier topography	2 - very high	Long time for mapping.	L-band SAR for interferometry between images taken at time intervals
Ice sheet topography	2 - very high	Long time for mapping.	L-band SAR for interferometry between images taken at time intervals
Land surface topography*	2 - very high	Long time for mapping.	L-band SAR for interferometry between images taken at time intervals
Oil spill cover*	2 - very high	Infrequent coverage.	L-band SAR
Soil moisture (in the roots region)	2 - very high	Infrequent coverage.	L-band SAR
Soil moisture at surface*	2 - very high	Infrequent coverage.	L-band SAR
Fire fractional cover	3 - high	Infrequent coverage.	L-band SAR. High resolution, for fire boundary detection
Sea-ice type*	3 - high	No specific limitation.	L-band SAR. Type interpreted as age/roughness
Snow water equivalent	4 - fair	Change detection only.. Infrequent coverage.	L-band SAR. SWE is retrieved by grigging with data from ground networks
Dominant wave direction	5 - marginal	Infrequent coverage.	L-band SAR. Variable measured by spectral analysis of "imagettes"
Dominant wave period	5 - marginal	Infrequent coverage.	L-band SAR. Variable measured by spectral analysis of "imagettes"
Fraction of vegetated land*	5 - marginal	No specific limitation.	L-band SAR
Land cover*	5 - marginal	No specific limitation.	L-band SAR
Sea-ice elevation	5 - marginal	No specific limitation.	L-band SAR. Sea ice elevation measured by interferometry
Sea-ice thickness	5 - marginal	Change detection only.	L-band SAR. Sea ice elevation measured by interferometry. Thickness inferred by ice model
Significant wave height	5 - marginal	Highly indirect.. Infrequent coverage.	L-band SAR. Retrieved by spectral analysis of "imagettes". Boundary condition necessary for the retrieval
Soil type	5 - marginal	No specific limitation.	L-band SAR
Vegetation type	5 - marginal	No specific limitation.	L-band SAR
Wave directional energy frequency spectrum	5 - marginal	Infrequent coverage.	L-band SAR. Variable measured by spectral analysis of "imagettes"

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