Infoterra's parent company Astrium has now successfully completed the construction work of TerraSAR-X's "twin satellite" TanDEM-X. The spacecraft has been packed into its transport container and will leave the Integration Center in Friedrichshafen for the test facilities of Astrium and IABG (near Munich) early next week.

The spacecraft will be thoroughly tested until mid-September, when it will then be transported to the Baikonur space centre (Kazakhstan), its launch aboard a Russian Dnepr scheduled for October.

Infoterra is excitedly awaiting this new mission: "In the future, TanDEM-X will enable us to solidify our unique market position even further, as we will conduct the commercial exploitation of this data exclusively," Infoterra's Chief Operations Officer Nikolaus Faller says. The  twin satellite constellation will deliver data for a global digital elevation model of an unprecedented quality, accuracy and coverage.

TanDEM-X will fly in a close formation with the almost identical TerraSAR-X satellite for a period of two years, collecting data for a digital elevation model of the Earth's land masses. By flying at distances of as little as only 200 metres at times, the two satellites form a radar interferometer. Mission goal is to completely measure the Earth's land surface (150 million square kilometres) within a period of only three years. For a 12-metre grid (street width), height information can be determined with an accuracy of less than two metres.

As with the TerraSAR-X 'sister mission', the TanDEM-X project was implemented in a Public-Private Partnership (PPP) between Astrium GmbH and DLR. Infoterra GmbH is exclusively responsible for the commercial marketing. exploitation for scientific purposes is coordinated by the DLR institute for high-frequency technology and radar systems.