Russia - Landscape West of Wolgograd

The first TerraSAR-X image delivered by DLR's processing system captures a region in Southern Russia, showing the entry of the Wolga-Don-Channel into the Don river near the city of Kalach-na-Donu.

View TerraSAR-X image

The image displays an area dominated by agriculture: large field structures surrounded by hedges to protect from wind erosion. Settlements and industry are located around the entry of the Wolga-Don-Channel and at the river banks.

The rapid topographic assessment is based on the 10 m quicklook image (TerraSAR-X StripMap mode in 3m but degraded to 10 m) produced by DLR - just four days after the German radar satellite TerraSAR-X has been successfully launched from the Baikonur Cosmodrome. The evaluation, produced in 0.5 days, focusses on infrastructure elements: settlements, roads, railway tracks, bridges and penstocks are clearly visible. Further key landscape elements like drainage patterns or hedges have also been mapped.

Disturbancies of a severe thunderstorm are visible in the western part of the image. Still, accurate evaluation was possible. At full resolution, the StripMap model will provide 3 m ground resolution, SpotLight images 1 m resolution - allowing much more detailed mapping.

View Rapid Topographic Evaluation