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TanDEM-X (TerraSAR-X add-on for Digital Elevation Measurements) is an innovative formation flying radar mission that opens a new era in spaceborne radar remote sensing. The primary objective is the acquisition of a global Digital Elevation Model (DEM) with unprecedented accuracy (12 m horizontal and 2 m vertical resolution). This goal is achieved by extending the TerraSAR-X synthetic aperture radar (SAR) mission by a second, TerraSAR-X like satellite (TDX) flying in close formation with TerraSAR-X (TSX). Both satellites form together a large singlepass SAR interferometer with the opportunity for flexible baseline selection. This enables the acquisition of highly accurate cross-track interferograms without the inherent accuracy limitations imposed by repeat-pass interferometry due to temporal decorrelation and atmospheric disturbances. Besides the primary goal of the mission, several secondary mission objectives based on along-track interferometry as well as new bistatic and multistatic SAR techniques have been defined, representing an important and innovative asset of the TanDEM-X mission. TanDEM-X is implemented in the framework of a public-private partnership between the German Aerospace Center (DLR) and EADS Astrium GmbH. The TanDEM-X mission was successfully launched in June 2010 and started operational data acquisition in December 2010. This paper provides an overview of the TanDEM-X mission and summarizes its actual status and performance. Furthermore, results from several scientific radar experiments will be presented that show the great potential of future formation flying interferometric SAR missions to serve novel remote sensing applications.

a b s t r a c tThe TanDEM-X (TerraSAR-X add-on for Digital Elevation Measurement) mission comprises two nearly identical satellites: TerraSAR-X (TSX, launched in 2007), and TanDEM-X (TDX, launched in June 2010). The primary objective of the mission is to generate a worldwide and consistent digital elevation model (DEM) with an unprecedented accuracy. During the first 3 months after its launch, the TDX satellite was tested and calibrated in monostatic configuration with both satellites flying in 20 km along-track distance, and it was proven that the system and acquisition performance is almost identical to TSX. Both satellites were then brought into close formation of a few hundred meters distance to begin the bistatic commissioning phase. Since then, TSX and TDX have acted as a large single-pass radar interferometer, which overcomes the limitations imposed by repeat-pass interferometry and allow the acquisition of highly accurate cross-and along-track interferograms. In December 2010, TanDEM-X began with operational global acquisition: bistatic and monostatic SAR images are simultaneously acquired in stripmap mode and processed to interferograms, from which a global DEM is derived. The key parameter in estimating interferometric performance is the coherence, which is deeply evaluated in this paper. The impact of different decorrelation sources as well as the performance stability over time is investigated by means of statistical analyses and dedicated acquisitions on defined test sites, demonstrating the outstanding interferometric capabilities of the TanDEM-X mission. Ó

a b s t r a c tThe primary objective of the TanDEM-X mission is the generation of a global high resolution digital elevation model (DEM) with single-pass SAR interferometry. Within the mission, the Earth's land masses will be mapped at least twice to achieve relative vertical accuracies in the order of two meters. This paper presents an analysis of the mission performance in terms of the relative height error showing first results obtained from TanDEM-X interferometric data. For critical areas characterized by strong volume decorrelation phenomena or mountainous terrain, different approaches to improve the final height error are investigated as well. Ó

Since 2010, TanDEM-X and its twin satellite TerraSAR-X fly in a close orbit formation and form a single-pass synthetic aperture radar (SAR) interferometer. The formation was established to acquire a global high-precision digital elevation model (DEM) using SAR interferometry (InSAR). In order to achieve the required height accuracy of the TanDEM-X DEM, at least two global coverages have to be acquired. However, in difficult and mountainous terrain, up to five coverages are present. Here, acquisitions from ascending and descending orbits are needed to fill gaps and to overcome geometric limitations. Therefore, a strategy to properly combine the available height estimates is mandatory. The objective of this paper is the presentation of the operational TanDEM-X DEM mosaicking approach. In general, multiple InSAR DEM heights are combined by means of a weighted average with the height error as weight. Apart from this widely used mosaicking approach, one big challenge remains with the handling of larger height discrepancies between the input data, which are mainly caused by phase unwrapping errors, but also by temporal changes between acquisitions. In the case of inconsistencies, the TanDEM-X mosaicking approach performs a grouping into height levels. A priority concept is set up to evaluate the different groups of heights considering the number of DEMs and several InSAR quality parameters: the height error, the phase unwrapping method, and the height of ambiguity. This allows the identification of the most reliable height level for mosaicking. This fusion concept is verified on different test areas affected by phase unwrapping errors in flat and mountainous terrain as well as by height discrepancies in forests. The results show that the quality of the final TanDEM-X DEM mosaic benefits a lot from this mosaicking approach.Index Terms-Digital elevation models (DEMs), image fusion, interferometric synthetic aperture radar (InSAR), mosaicking, TanDEM-X.

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This paper presents for the first time a detailed study on information content of X-band single-pass interferometric spaceborne SAR data with respect to snow facies characterization. An approach for classifying different snow facies of the Greenland Ice Sheet by exploiting X-band TanDEM-X interferometric synthetic aperture radar acquisitions is firstly detailed. Large-scale mosaics of radar backscatter and volume correlation factor, derived from quicklook images of the interferometric coherence, represent the starting point for applying an unsupervised classification method based on the c-means fuzzy clustering algorithm. The data was acquired during winter 2010/2011. A partition of four different snow facies was chosen and interpreted using reference melt data, snow density, and in situ measurements. The variations in the stratification and micro-structure of firn, such as the variations of density with depth and the presence of percolation features, are identified as relevant parameters for explaining the significant differences in the observed interferometric signatures among different snow facies. Moreover, a statistical analysis of backscatter and volume correlation factor provided useful parameters for characterizing the snow facies behavior and analyzing their dependency on the acquisition geometry. Finally, knowing the location and characterization of the different snow facies, the two-way X-band penetration depth over the whole Ice Sheet was estimated. The obtained mean values vary from 2.3 m for the outer snow facies up to 4.18 m for the inner one. The presented approach represents a starting point for a long-term monitoring of ice sheet dynamics, by acquiring time-series, and is of high relevance for the design of future SAR missions as well.