The TerraSAR-X Orthorectification Service and Its Benefit for Land Use Applications

The German Aerospace Center (DLR) currently develops the TerraSAR-X Payload Ground Segment. On request level lb products will be distributed to the user. Two of the four basic products available are generated by the geocoding system. This system supports ellipsoid and terrain correction in order to provide orthorectified images. A new product called Enhanced Ellipsoid Corrected (EEC) will be offered that considers Digital Elevation Models (DEMs) of a moderately coarser resolution than the resolution of the TerraSAR-X modes. SRTM/X-band DEMs with approximately 25 m resolution will be the backbone for this operational and fully automated service. For high precision terrain correction first results of an experimental processor are presented using a high resolution DEM, tie- pointing and image adjustment.