February 11, 2000
SRTM Report 01
Houston-Johnson Space Center
The Space Shuttle Endeavour lifted off from Kennedy Space Center,
today at 12:43 pm, Eastern Time, with Commander Kevin Kregel saying the crew was
"ready to map the world".
Since this moment all the times will be expressed using the MET (Mission Elapsed Time).
The NASA and the Italian and German Space Agencies radars are now ready to produce the
topography map of all the land between -58 and +60 degrees of latitude.
The most expected moment of the first day of the mission has been the deployment of the
60m mast (made up by 86 cubic segments).Everything is now ready to begin the mapping.
Paolo Ammendola
Mario Calamia
February 12, 2000
SRTM Report 02
Houston-Johnson Space Center
The mapping started after
the On Orbit Check Out. All the planned datatakes have been completely acquired and all
the telemetry data confirm that the radars are working properly. The X-SAR raw data have
been sent to JPL and to the Italian and German Processing and Archiving Facilities (I-PAF
and D-PAF) and the first indications show that the data are of excellent quality. First
images of exceptional quality have been produced by the Italian team operating the Italian
Space Agency processor (One Bit Processor), conceived at the University of Naples and
built by Alenia Aerospazio.
Great admiration for the products obtained has been shown by the american and german
partners (recurring sentence "Why 4 bits if one is more then enough") who also
asked for a copy of the images.
The Datatake processed was referred to the area between Arizona and New Mexico, and the
related images can be seen on the Italian Space Agency WEB (www.asi.it)
and MECSA WEB, under SRTM.
The images shown are:
- Single channel medium resolution image
- Interferogram
- Digital Elevation Model
- DEM 3D
All these images refer to an area of 25km x 50 km.
The data are periodically sent to ground and continuously processed by the Italian team at
JPL, thus showing the relaiability of the overall SRTM system
Paolo Ammendola
Mario Calamia
February 14, 2000
SRTM Report 03
Houston-Johnson Space Center
Shuttle Endeavour flight is going smoothly ahead,
with the exception of a small problem to the cool gas thrust at the end of the 60 meter
mast. This has caused a propellant consumption more than expected.
The radar as well as the ground system is performing nominally. The downloaded data allow
to produce very significant and high quality images. The mast performs very well.
Prof. Giorgio Franceschetti, representative of the Italian team in the today NASA press
conference, has presented the performance and the images obtained with the Italian One Bit
processor. Conventional processors have processing time almost two orders of magnitude
greater than the One Bit processor. The same Digital Elevation Model in three dimensions,
both processed with conventional processing (4 bit) and the One Bit processing have been
compared showing that a neglegible loss of quality exists and can be tolarated for a
certain number of applications (expecially on board processing). For these applications
the One Bit Processor is an excellent processor.
Paolo Ammendola
Mario Calamia
February 16, 2000
SRTM Report 04
Houston-Johnson Space Center
The onboard radar continue to send high quality data on
ground to the processing facilities. These data are processed by the Italian One Bit
Processor providing in real time full resolution single radar images together with Digital
Elevation Models (off-line processing). These images, together with the images produced by
the ASI Processing and Archiving and Distribution facility (I-PAF) are at scientist
disposal on the ASI web pages.
On Tuesday evening the word radar coverage was equivalent to the overall area of Africa,
North and South America. Part of this area has been covered twice as by pre-mission plans.
All the recorded data will be available after three months from the Shuttle landing.
During these 11 days mission two sets of data are sent to ground: the data set received by
one antenna only and the data set received by the two antennas. Three dimensional products
can be obtained only using the data set coming from the two antennas.
We received data on ground coming from one antenna and therefore we inserted in the web
only bidimensional images. The data are related to the ground strip which includes Pianosa
and Elba islands , Toscany ( including part of Florence) and Comacchio.
These images, being processed by the One Bit Processor, have not the same quality of the
precision processed ones (available in short time by I-PAF on the ASI page
"Operational Site")
For what the Shuttle propellant problem is concerned, 18 options are now under evaluation,
thus increasing the hope to go back to nominal pre-mission planning.
Paolo Ammendola
Mario Calamia
February 19, 2000
SRTM Report 05
Houston-Johnson Space Center
The actions decided by NASA and performed by the Mission Control Center
and by the astronauts have obtained the hoped result. The mapping operations will continue
till day 9, hours 18, much more than the scheduled plan. This will give us a further
flight over Italy, just few hours before the mast stowing. The mission goes ahead smoothly
and we are now planning the post-mission activities. A recent X-SAR Data Take shows
Oberpfaffenhofen, Bavaria. An enlargement shows an area around Munich Airport. The image
was taken during snow showers and reduced visibility, demonstrating the all-weather
potential of the radar.
Paolo Ammendola
Mario Calamia
February 21, 2000
SRTM Report 06
Houston-Johnson Space Center
On Monday February 21, hour 00:52 p.m. italian time, the radar
observation has stopped as planned. The earth surface observed at least once amounts to
119.050 million square Km while 112.66 million square Km has been observed at least twice.
The commands for the antenna positioning and the mast re-entry in the shuttle Cargo Bay
started at 1:34 pm (Italian time). All the re-entry of the mast has gone accordingly to
expectations, except for the last 20 cm for which two hours have been spent. The
scientific activity in Houston is over. Tomorrow the Shuttle will land at Cape Canaveral
or Edwards depending on weather conditions.
Paolo Ammendola
Mario Calamia
March 13, 2000
SRTM Report 07
Florence
Space Shuttle Endeavour returned to Kennedy Space Center's Shuttle Landing Facility
(SLF) on February 22, 2000 at 6:22 p.m. EST, after traveling 4 million miles in space and
mapping more than 47 million square miles of the earth's surface. The orbiter and the
six-member flight crew made a flawless landing on the second of two Florida landing
opportunities. The first opportunity was at 4:50 p.m., but crosswinds at the SLF violated
established weather constraints. The flight crew returned to Houston, TX, the day after
for the usual celebrations and to meet and to thank all the Team, of the Johnson Space
Center, they worked with during the 11 days of mission. The mission had an extraordinary
success reaching the 99.96% of the foreseen targets.
Paolo Ammendola
Mario Calamia
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