2009

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September 11, 2009

Flash floods near Istanbul, Turkey, September 11th, 2009

Heavy rainfall has caused severe flooding in Istanbul and northwestern Turkey on September 8, 2009, killing at least 30 people, destroying bridges and flooding houses and streets. The maps, produced from DFD, show pre-event water extents (as detected on March 24, 2009) in the area west of Istanbul, compared to those analysed on September 11, 2009, after the event. Also annotated are areas which appear moist in the radar data.

August 24, 2009

Forest fires in Greece

Several forest fires have occurred since August 21, 2009 in the prefecture Attika, north-eastern of Athens, Greece. The fires, fanned by strong winds, destroyed thousands of hectares of forest land, farming fields and olive groves. Many residents had to be evacuated from their homes.

July 22, 2009

TerraSAR-X image of the month: Oil disaster off the Australian coast

On 21 August 2009, the Montara offshore oil platform in the Timor Sea, to the northeast of Australia, started leaking oil. Over a period of ten weeks, more than two million litres of oil were lost into the sea, forming a 2000 square kilometre slick. The German radar satellite TerraSAR-X followed the growth of the slick as it occurred. The picture shows the platform and the slick spreading out from it, visible as a dark area.

November 01, 2009

First autumn-school of the network EOS

From Oktober 26 to 29 the first autumn school of the network EOS has been held at the „Haus der Bayerischen Landwirtschaft” in Herrsching. The workshop convened more than 30 PhDs and 20 further experts in order to discuss their work on the seven topics of the network. Both the organization and conduction of the event were in the responsibility of the "Cluster for Applied Remote Sensing" of DLR.

October 01, 2009

Earthquake in Indonesia (Padang, Sumatra) on September 30, 2009

On September 30, 2009, a severe earthquake took place in the Indian Ocean with a magnitude of 7.9 and several aftershocks. The epicentre was registered about 50 km north-eastern of Padang in a depth of 85 km. Heavy shocks caused the collapse of many buildings and bridges, fires broke out and major parts of the technical infrastructure failed. More than 500 people died, much more than 1000 are missing (data from October 1, 2009).

September 7, 2009

OceanSAR 2009 Workshop

The 2009 workshop on SAR Ocean Remote Sensing was helt at "Haus der bayerischen Landwirtschaft" in Herrsching, Germany from September 7-11, 2009. The workshop was hosted and organized by the Remote Sensing Technology Institute IMF of the German Aerospace Center DLR.

August 6, 2009

Hyperspectral Workshop 2010 / Submission of abstracts until November 13, 2009

From March 17 to 19, the Hyperspectral Workshop 2010 will take place at ESA´s Earth Observation Center (ESRIN) in Frascati, Italy. Conference details are provided at www.congrex.nl/10C02. Deadline for the submission of abstracts is November 13, 2009. The workshop will be jointly organized by the European Space Agency (ESA), the German Aerospace Center (DLR) together with the German Research Center for Geosciences (GFZ), and the Italian Space Agency (ASI). The workshop will focus on the current and future hyperspectral / imaging spectroscopy capacity in Europe. It aims to combine the established user community of the ESA CHRIS Proba mission with the European and International user communities in preparation for the future hyperspectral missions PRISMA (ASI) and EnMAP (DLR/GFZ).

August 5, 2009

Cost free access to RapidEye data for scientists

DLR enables scientists in Germany cost free access to data from the RapidEye satellites. In the framework of the public-private partnership with the commercial partner for the development of the RapidEye system, and supported by the Federal Ministry for Economics, DLR was granted a user license for an area of 29,4sqm. These data will be recorded over seven years. Through the RESA web portal at resaweb.dlr.de scientist may apply for free access to RapidEye data. The decision about the allotment will then be taken by a board of independent reviewers. (Image: Copyrights 2009 RapidEye AG)

July 29, 2009

High-precision aerial photographs of the Landslide in Nachterstedt

In the context of the project ARGOS (Airborne Wide Area High Altitude Monitoring System) DLR has produced high-resolution aerial imagery of the Nachterstedt (Saxony-Anhalt) region that has been recently affected by a landslide. The imaging instrument was mounted on a Cessna Caravan.

July 22, 2009

TerraSAR-X Image of the Month: Ship identification in the Kiel Fjord and the Baltic Sea

This image – from the German TerraSAR-X radar satellite - shows the city of Kiel and the Kiel Fjord, an approximately 17-km long fjord or firth of the Baltic Sea on the northeastern shore of Schleswig-Holstein. The ships that were in this area at the time the image was captured are each marked with a circle. The high resolution of TerraSAR-X images makes them ideally suitable for the rapid identification of ships. The image was taken on 18 June 2009. It was acquired in stripmap mode with a resolution of three metres.

July 17, 2009

Venus' atmosphere observed – SCIAMACHY on Envisat looks elsewhere

Scientists at the German Aerospace Center (DLR) and the Netherlands Institute for Space Research (SRON) have found a new area of deployment for the SCIAMACHY atmospheric instrument on the European environmental satellite ENVISAT. In March and June 2009, the spectrometer was directed away from its normal target, Earth, towards our neighbouring inner planet Venus and investigated its radiation at visible light and near-infrared wavelengths.

June 26, 2009

TerraSAR-X image of the month: The volcano 'Piton de la Fournaise' on the island of La Réunion

The image, taken by the German radar satellite TerraSAR-X, shows the volcano 'Piton de la Fournaise' (Furnace Peak) in the south of the island of La Réunion (Indian Ocean). This is the last active volcano on the island and is 2631 metres high. By means of very precise repeat-pass interferometric measurements, TerraSAR-X is able to detect even small movements of the Earth's surface, thus supporting volcano monitoring.

June 9, 2009

German TanDEM-X radar satellite now complete

In early 2009, Friedrichshafen-based aerospace company Astrium completed construction of the German radar satellite TanDEM-X. This satellite was created in collaboration with the German Aerospace Center (Deutsches Zentrum für Luft- und Raumfahrt; DLR). The satellite, five metres in length and weighing 1.3 tons, has now been transported to Ottobrunn, a town near Munich. In special-purpose test facilities operated by Astrium and IABG, the satellite will undergo trials until mid-September 2009 to confirm its suitability for operation in outer space. It will be subjected to extreme temperatures and radiation and, in particular, the loads experienced during launch will be simulated. Once the tests are completed, the satellite will be transported to the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.

May 26, 2009

TerraSAR-X image of the month: L’Aquila after the earthquake of April 6, 2009-05-28

The image of the German radar satellite TerraSAR-X shows the region of L’Aquila in central Italy after the earthquake of magnitude 6.3 on April 6th. The so-called interferogram was computed from two records of TerraSAR-X, one of them taken 2 months before the event , the other one 6 days after the hazard.

May 20, 2009

Animated aerial- and satellite-imagery for the 60th anniversary of the German Constitution

The post-war development of both German states is also reflected by the architectural concepts, the buildings, streets and places – in particular in Berlin. These historical architectural changes have now been elaborated by scientists of the Geo-Visualisation Center (GeoVis) of DFD. Using aerial photographs and satellite imagery from 1928 to 2009 they have produced video-animations showing distinctly the damages by war, the reconstruction progress, the wall and other DDR buildings, the renovating period after reunification and the recent status of Berlin.

April 18, 2009

Northern ice front of Wilkins Ice Shelf is becoming unstable

Following the loss of an ice bridge on the Antarctic Wilkins Ice Shelf, the northern ice front is now becoming unstable. The first icebergs broke off at this point on 20 April 2009. This was observed by scientists using the TerraSAR-X Earth observation satellite operated by the German Aerospace Center (Deutsches Zentrum für Luft- und Raumfahrt; DLR). "We anticipate that, over the next days and weeks, an area of 570 to 3370 square kilometres will break away before – hopefully – a new and more stable northern ice front will form", states Dr Angelika Humbert, a glaciologist at the University of Münster's Geophysics Institute.

April 21, 2009

TerraSAR-X Image of the Month: The Wadden Sea in North Frisia

The image shows the mudflats near the island of Sylt. It was compiled from two satellite images that were taken by the German radar satellite TerraSAR-X in April and May 2008. The individual pictures are coloured red and green respectively. The difference in the reflected radar signals is especially large over the areas of water, as it is here that there were the most changes between when the first picture was taken in April and the second in May. The blue coloured strip has been used to highlight this. The resulting image can be used to extensively study the morphology, sediments and habitats in the Wadden Sea.

March 26, 2009

Direct Broadcast Mode reactivated on the Terra satellite

Failure of Direct Broadcast Mode on the Terra satellite March 26, 2009 Due to technical difficulties, Direct Broadcast Mode is currently unavailable on the Terra satellite. NASA hopes to be able to reactivate it in the foreseeable future. For this reason, DLR's reception operations have been completely switched over to the Aqua satellite. MODIS Level 1b data from Aqua can currently only be obtained via DIMS/EOWEB with a delay of approx. one day.