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Full catalog/SENTINEL-1A_META_SLC
SENTINEL-1A_META_SLC·v1·dataset

Index info for cloud-piercing radar images (Sentinel-1A)

Sentinel-1A Single Look Complex Product Metadata
land NASA ASF Level Not provided active
In plain English

What it measures. Descriptive index records (metadata) for Sentinel-1A radar image products, not the images themselves. The records describe each Single Look Complex radar scene.

How it's made. Generated by the Alaska Satellite Facility as standards-compliant XML metadata accompanying the radar data from the Sentinel-1A satellite, which images day and night through clouds.

How & where you'd use it. A catalog-and-search aid that helps users find and understand the matching radar images, rather than something used on its own.

What's measured

AGRICULTURE › FOREST SCIENCE › REFORESTATIONBIOSPHERE › ECOSYSTEMS › TERRESTRIAL ECOSYSTEMSCRYOSPHERE › FROZEN GROUND › PERMAFROSTCRYOSPHERE › FROZEN GROUND › ROCK GLACIERSCRYOSPHERE › GLACIERS/ICE SHEETS › GLACIER ELEVATION/ICE SHEET ELEVATIONCRYOSPHERE › GLACIERS/ICE SHEETS › GLACIER MOTION/ICE SHEET MOTIONCRYOSPHERE › GLACIERS/ICE SHEETS › GLACIER THICKNESS/ICE SHEET THICKNESSCRYOSPHERE › GLACIERS/ICE SHEETS › GLACIER TOPOGRAPHY/ICE SHEET TOPOGRAPHYCRYOSPHERE › GLACIERS/ICE SHEETS › GLACIERSCRYOSPHERE › GLACIERS/ICE SHEETS › ICE SHEETSCRYOSPHERE › GLACIERS/ICE SHEETS › ICEBERGSCRYOSPHERE › SEA ICE › ICE DEFORMATIONCRYOSPHERE › SEA ICE › ICE DEPTH/THICKNESSCRYOSPHERE › SEA ICE › ICE EDGES

Coverage & cadence

  • Time span2014-04-03 → ongoing
  • Measured bySentinel-1A (C-SAR)
  • Processing levelLevel Not provided
  • Spatial extent-180, -90, 180, 90
  • StatusACTIVE

What you can do with it

  • Track deforestation, fire scars and land-cover change
  • Monitor crop and vegetation health (NDVI/EVI)
  • Map how built-up vs. green an area is over time
Official description

Sentinel-1A, the first satellite in the Sentinel-1 constellation, was launched April 3, 2014. The Sentinel-1 satellites (Sentinel-1A, Sentinel-1B, and Sentinel-1C) are sun-synchronous polar-orbiting satellites that operate day and night performing C-band synthetic aperture radar (SAR) imaging. The Sentinel-1 satellites operate in four imaging modes with different resolutions (down to 5 meters) and coverage (up to 400 kilometers). The Sentinel-1 satellites provide dual polarization capability and short revisit times. Sentinel-1A Single Look Complex (SLC) data products consist of focused SAR data and are provided in slant-range geometry. Slant range is the natural radar range observation coordinate, defined as the line-of-sight from the radar to each reflecting object. The products are in zero-Doppler orientation, where each row of pixels represents points along a line perpendicular to the sub-satellite track. The products include a single look in each dimension using the full available signal bandwidth and complex samples (real and imaginary) preserving the phase information. The products have been geo-referenced using the satellite’s orbit and attitude data and have been corrected for azimuth bi-static delay, elevation antenna pattern, and range spreading loss. The products in this collection are ISO compliant XML metadata created by the Alaska Satellite Facility Distributed Active Archive Center from the associated Sentinel-1A SAFE format product.

Get the data

sentinel-1a_meta_slc_access.py
import earthaccess
earthaccess.login(strategy="netrc")          # free Earthdata Login

results = earthaccess.search_data(
    short_name="SENTINEL-1A_META_SLC",
    version="1",
    bounding_box=(-122.5, 37.2, -121.8, 37.9),  # your area (W,S,E,N)
    temporal=("2024-01-01", "2024-12-31"),       # your dates
)
files = earthaccess.open(results)   # stream straight from ASF
Browsing CMR needs no login. Downloading or streaming bytes needs a free Earthdata Login + the earthaccess package.