COSMO-SkyMed Background Mission (CBM)

The COSMO-SkyMed Background Mission serves to maximise the use of the COSMO-SkyMed system and populate the archive using continuous, low priority data acquisitions.

The CBM is intended to guarantee the availability of reference datasets for future mapping projects, emergency mapping and change detection applications. Data collected will be stored and made available when required.

The acquisition plan is kept as simple as possible so that it can be exploited with low priority modality (for example, using right-looking acquisitions since that is the default).

The 2008 & 2009 CBM mission was based on the handbook used for the commissioning phase, which focused on:

  • Volcanoes
  • Principal cities
  • Rivers
  • Dams
  • Archaeology
  • Forestry
  • Glaciers (for the International Polar Year)

International Polar Year. The COSMO-SkyMed dataset for this initiative is acquired in both foreground and background. Seven foreground IPY projects were activated between February and April 2010, while other acquisitions in Antarctica and Greenland match IPY objectives:

  • Daily monitoring of Wilkins Ice Shelf from March 2008 to the present.
  • Rapid mapping of the Antarctic Peninsula
  • InSAR acquisitions of Perito Moreno, the Lanterman Fault and Drygalski Ice tongue
  • Monitoring of Ross Bay
  • Monitoring of the Italian Antarctic Stations

CBM Mission 2010: active projects

Google Earth KML files associated with these acquisitions will be updated weekly

  • Australia mapping (KMZ file showing details of CBM acquisitions over Australia)
  • Iceland 3D mapping (KML files for ascending and descending acquisitions)
  • North pole daily mapping


Australia


Iceland ascending


Iceland descending