ASAR wide swath mode interferometry: optimization of the scan pattern synchronization

The availability of single look complex ENVISAT Scan-SAR product (WSS) has opened new possibilities for in-terferometric applications requiring large scale analysis and short revisit time. However, ScanSAR interferometry requires the scan pat-tern to be synchronized between interferometric acquisi-tions, which was not a design requirement for ENVISAT ASAR. Nevertheless, a preliminary analysis showed that the amount of sufficiently synchronized ASAR WSM data was much higher than expected. This is a conse-quence of the accurate ENVISAT orbit control and the systematic acquisition plan applied over certain areas of the world. To further increase the percentage of WSM data with suf-ficient synchronization, the mission planning system has been slightly modified and WSM acquisitions are planned according to the new strategy since mid Novem-ber 2006. This paper presents the requirements for ASAR ScanSAR burst synchronization, the modifications introduced in the mission planning and the improvement in the synchroni-zation percentage.