Sentinel-1 (CARD-BS) BackScatter

Product details

Ground range coordinates for Sentinel-1 (CARD-BS) BackScatter represent the slant range coordinates projected onto the ellipsoid of the Earth. The pixel values within the product correspond to the detected magnitude, while phase information is not retained. As a result of the multi-look processing, the product offers approximately square spatial resolution and square pixel spacing, which helps reduce speckle effects.

To facilitate thermal noise correction, the product annotations include a data set called "noise vector annotation" that contains thermal noise vectors. Users can apply a thermal noise correction by subtracting the noise values from the detected power. Support for thermal noise correction, such as using the Sentinel-1 Toolbox (S1TBX), is available for users.

GRD products are available in three different resolutions, which are determined by the acquisition mode and the level of multi-looking applied:

1. Full Resolution (FR): This resolution is available in SM (Stripmap) mode.
2. High Resolution (HR): This resolution is available in both SM (Stripmap) and IW (Interferometric Wide Swath) modes.
3. Medium Resolution (MR): This resolution is available in SM (Stripmap), IW (Interferometric Wide Swath), and EW (Extra Wide Swath) modes.

For IW and EW GRD products, the multi-look process is performed individually on each burst. Subsequently, all bursts within all sub-swaths are seamlessly merged to create a single, contiguous GRD image for each polarisation channel. Additionally, the data are also accessible in COG (Cloud-Optimized GeoTIFF) format, enabling efficient and optimized data handling and processing.