Space Shuttle World Mapping Mission Marks 10th Anniversary
By Pasadena Independent
Published: Thursday, February 11th, 2010
The main antenna actually consisted of two antennas and the avionics that computed the position of the antennas. Each antenna was made up of special panels that could transmit and receive radar signals.
Ten Years ago on February 11, 2000, two radar antennas built by JPL launched aboard Space Shuttle Endeavour on an 11-day mission to create the first-ever near-global high-resolution database of Earth’s topography.
One antenna was called the C-band antenna and could transmit and receive radar wavelenths that are 5.6 centimeters long.
During the mission the C-band radar, with a swath width (width of the radar beam on Earth’s surface) of 225 kilometers, scanned about 80% of the land surface of the Earth.
The C-band data are being processed at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory to make a near-global topographic map of the Earth.
SRTM main antenna standing up on end. C-band panels are on the bottom, X-band panels are hinged over the top. Avionics electronics package is positioned at the top middle. SRTM astronaut crew is in the foreground.
The other antenna was the X-band antenna.
This antenna could transmit and receive radar wavelenths that are 3 centimeters long. The X-band radar, with a swath width of 50 kilometers, produced topographic maps at a somewhat higher resolution than the C-band data, but did not have near-global coverage.
The X-band data are being processed and distributed by DLR (Deutsches Zentrum fur Luft- und Raumfahrt), the German Aerospace Center.
The international Shuttle Radar Topography Mission collected topographic data over nearly 80 percent of Earth’s land surfaces, revealing for the first time large, detailed swaths of Earth’s topography previously obscured by persistent cloudiness.
The data benefit scientists, engineers, government agencies and the public alike, with applications that range from land use planning to virtual Earth exploration.
- This forward end of main antenna in the Launch Package Integration Stand is the view the astronauts saw from inside the Shuttle.
NASA is currently using Shuttle Radar Topography Mission data to create an even better global topographic map by combining it with the more complete Advanced Spaceborne Thermal Emission and Reflection Radiometer global digital elevation model of Earth released last year by NASA and Japan’s Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry.
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