The shuttle radar topography mission - A new class of digital elevation models acquired by spaceborne radar

Bernhard Rabus, Michael Eineder, Achim Roth, Richard Bamler

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

1510 Scopus citations

Abstract

For 11 days in February 2000, the Shuttle Radar Topography Mission (SRTM) successfully recorded by interferometric synthetic aperture radar (InSAR) data of the entire land mass of the earth between 60°N and 57°S. The data acquired in C- and X-bands are processed into the first global digital elevation models (DEMs) at 1 arc sec resolution, by NASA-JPL and German aerospace center (DLR), respectively. From the perspective of the SRTM-X system, we give in this paper an overview of the mission and the DEM production, as well as an evaluation of the DEM product quality. Special emphasis is on challenges and peculiarities of the processing that arose from the unique design of the SRTM system, which has been the first single-pass interferometer in space.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)241-262
Number of pages22
JournalISPRS Journal of Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing
Volume57
Issue number4
DOIs
StatePublished - Feb 2003
Externally publishedYes

Keywords

  • Digital elevation models
  • Interferometry
  • Shuttle Radar Topography Mission (SRTM)
  • Synthetic aperture radar

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