WMO OSCAR | Details for Instrument RLSBO

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Instrument: RLSBO

Instrument details

Acronym	RLSBO
Full name	Side Looking Real Aperture Radar
Purpose	Sea-ice monitoring
Short description	Real aperture antenna, X-band frequency (9.7 GHz)
Background
Scanning Technique	Side-looking, basic swath 455 km, offset 250 km from nadir. On Okean-O-1 there are two parallel swaths leaving a 500-km gap in between, along the sub-track. On SICH-1M the swath may be stretched to 700 km
Resolution	1.8 km average
Coverage / Cycle	Global in 3 days (1.5 days for Okean-O-1)
Mass		Power	Data Rate

Providing Agency	Roscosmos
Instrument Maturity	Flown on operational programme
Utilization Period:	1986 to 2006
Last update:	2012-09-12

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

Okean Operational 1 (NSAU)
- Okean-O1-1 (see instrument status) Oct 1986 - Jul 1988
- Okean-O1-2 (see instrument status) Oct 1987 - Jul 1989
- Okean-O1-3 (see instrument status) Oct 1988 - Jul 1990
- Okean-O1-4 (see instrument status) Jun 1989 - Jun 1989
- Okean-O1-5 (see instrument status) May 1990 - Feb 1992
- Okean-O1-6 (see instrument status) Sep 1991 - Jun 1993
- Okean-O1-7 (see instrument status) Jan 1995 - Oct 1996
- SICH-1 (see instrument status) Nov 1995 - Dec 2001
- SICH-1M (see instrument status) Mar 2005 - Apr 2006
Okean-O (NSAU)
- Okean-O-1 (see instrument status) Oct 1999 - Sep 2000

Instrument classification

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

WIGOS Subcomponents

Subcomponent 1
SAR imagers and altimeters
SAR imager

Mission objectives

Primary mission objectives

Fraction of vegetated land
Glacier motion
Glacier topography
Land cover
Land surface topography
Soil moisture at surface
Soil type
Vegetation type

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.

Variable	Relevance for measuring this variable	Operational limitations	Explanation
Fire fractional cover	3 - high	Infrequent coverage.	X-band SAR. High resolution, for fire boundary detection
Fraction of vegetated land*	3 - high	No specific limitation.	X-band SAR
Glacier cover	2 - very high	Long time for mapping.	X-band SAR for accurate boundary detection
Glacier motion*	5 - marginal	Infrequent coverage.	X-band SAR for interferometry between images taken at time intervals
Glacier topography*	3 - high	Long time for mapping.	X-band SAR for interferometry between images taken at time intervals
Ice sheet topography	3 - high	Long time for mapping.	X-band SAR for interferometry between images taken at time intervals
Land cover*	3 - high	No specific limitation.	X-band SAR
Land surface topography*	3 - high	Long time for mapping.	X-band SAR for interferometry between images taken at time intervals
Oil spill cover	1 - primary	Infrequent coverage.	X-band SAR
Snow cover	3 - high	Thick snow only.. Infrequent coverage.	X-band SAR
Snow status (wet/dry)	4 - fair	Thick snow only.. Infrequent coverage.	X-band SAR
Snow water equivalent	3 - high	Change detection only.. Infrequent coverage.	X-band SAR. SWE is retrieved by grigging with data from ground networks
Soil moisture at surface*	3 - high	Strongly affected by vegetation.. Infrequent coverage.	X-band SAR
Soil type*	3 - high	No specific limitation.	X-band SAR
Vegetation type*	5 - marginal	No specific limitation.	X-band SAR
Sea-ice cover	1 - primary	No specific limitation.	X-band SAR
Sea-ice elevation	4 - fair	No specific limitation.	X-band SAR. Sea ice elevation measured by interferometry
Sea-ice thickness	4 - fair	Change detection only.	X-band SAR. Sea ice elevation measured by interferometry. Thickness inferred by ice model
Sea-ice type	2 - very high	No specific limitation.	X-band SAR. Type interpreted as age/roughness