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Choppy Indian Ocean waters (yellow) contrast with the calm Baie de Diego (blue)
Germany's new radar satellite, TanDEM-X, has returned its first images. The spacecraft was launched from Kazakhstan on Monday on a mission to make the most precise 3D map of the Earth's surface.
The pictures demonstrate the platform is in excellent health and ready to team up with the TerraSAR-X satellite launched in 2007.
Together, the pair will trace the variation in height across the globe to a precision of better than two metres.This digital elevation model (DEM) will support a multitude of applications, such as the programming of navigation computers in military jets to enable them to fly ultra low. The data will also be given to relief workers to show them where an earthquake has wrought most damage in a city.
Infoterra GmbH, the company with exclusive rights to commercialize the TanDEM information, says the market for radar products is steadily growing. The new images depict a landscape in Ukraine, the north of Madagascar, and Moscow.
The pictures illustrate neatly the particular specialism of using radar to sense the planet's surface.
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