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GeoSAR (Geographic Synthetic Aperture Radar) is an airborne radar
system that will generate high-resolution, three-dimensional maps to
explore and study California. GeoSAR is being developed by a
consortium consisting of the California Department of Conservation,
Calgis Inc., and NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, with funding
provided the the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA).
The project will develop a dual-frequency airborne radar system that
will be able to collect 249 square kilometers (94 square miles) of
data a minute. A special feature of GeoSAR will be its ability to
acquire three-dimensional images of the Earth's surface through a
technique call interferometry. Because GeoSAR uses radar, the system
will be able to operate both day and night, under almost any weather
condition. GeoSAR will be the first instrument that will be able to
map both above, through, and below the vegetation canopy providing
important information such a data about landslides that are overgrown
with vegetation. The GeoSAR radar system is a dual frequency design
using both P- and X-band wavelengths. The longer P-band wavelength
will penetrate deeper into the canopy and, coupled with computer
modeling, map beneath the vegetation canopy. When combined with other
remote sensing data such as Landsat multi-spectral information, it
will be possible to not only determine land cover type such as tree
species, but also tree height and perhaps even width, such as crown
diameter. Maps created with the GeoSAR data will be used to assess
potential goelogic/seismic hazards, such as landslides, classify land
cover, map farmlands and urbanization, and manage forest
harvests. This system will become operational in early 2000.
For more information see:
"http://southport.jpl.nasa.gov/html/projects/geosar.html"
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