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

Catalog info for radar scenes (Sentinel-1B)

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

What it measures. Catalog and descriptive information about Sentinel-1B radar scenes, rather than the radar imagery itself.

How it's made. Generated alongside the Sentinel-1B satellite's radar products to record details about each captured scene.

How & where you'd use it. Used to search, identify, and select the right radar scenes; it points you to the actual data rather than containing the imagery you would analyze.

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 span2016-04-25 → 2021-12-24
  • Measured bySentinel-1B (C-SAR)
  • Processing levelLevel Not provided
  • Spatial extent-180, -90, 180, 90
  • StatusCOMPLETE

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-1B, the second satellite in the Sentinel-1 constellation, was launched April 25, 2016. 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. The spacecraft experienced an anomaly related to the instrument electronics power supply provided by the satellite platform, leaving it unable to deliver radar data on 23 December 2021, as a consequence, ESA and the European Commission announced the end of the Sentinel-1B mission on August 3, 2022. Sentinel-1B 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-1B SAFE format product.

Get the data

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

results = earthaccess.search_data(
    short_name="SENTINEL-1B_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.