The RADARSAT Antarctic Mapping Project

During September and October 1997, the Canadian Radarsat-1 was used to successfully acquire the first, high resolution synthetic aperture radar image data set of the entire Antarctic continent. This unprecedented activity was made possible by the in-orbit rotation of the SAR to look towards the South Pole and the electronic beam steering capability of the instrument to image to the Pole. These attributes, combined with the ability to operate day or night and to penetrate cloud, provide a nearly instantaneous snapshot of the southern continent. A composite mosaic constructed from over 3000 Radarsat-1 frames processed immediately after the mission by the Alaska SAR Facility is shown. These quick-look images were processed throughout the Antarctic Imaging Campaign (AIC) on the Jet Propulsion Laboratory designed Alaska SAR Processor. Quick-look images are 100 km on a side, are not radiometrically or geometrically calibrated and, in this case, have 100 m pixel size. The images were originally intended to verify that swaths overlapped at the coast and to visually verify data quality as it might be used to make real time changes in the acquisition plan. In fact the composite reveals extraordinary details about the glaciologic and geologic structure of the Antarctic. It is indeed a new view of Antarctica and provides for a quantitative analysis of surface properties over all of East and West Antarctica.