Photo Identification P-44751
October 10, 1994
Kennedy Space Center, Florida
This is an X-band
Synthetic Aperture Radar image spanning an area of about 20 kilometers by 40
kilometers (12 miles by 25 miles) of the Kennedy Space Center, Florida. At the
top right are cloud-like structures which indicate rain. X-SAR is able to
image heavy rainfall. The Atlantic Ocean is at the upper right. The shuttle
landing strip is seen at the top left of the image. The Vertical Assembly
Building, the Orbiter Processing Facility and other associated buildings are
seen as a white area to the right and just above the end of the shuttle strip.
The shuttle launch pads are the two white areas near the top center of the
image. The Banana River shows up as a large black area running north to south
to the right of the image. The Indian River is on the left side of the image.
Just above the image center is a cluster of white spots which are the major
buildings of the Kennedy Space Center industrial area. This was the location of
the reflector array that was constructed to form the letters "KSC" by the KSC
payload team. The data for these KSC images were taken on orbit 81 of the space
shuttle Endeavour on the fourth day of the SIR-C/X-SAR mission.-----Spaceborne
Imaging Radar-C and X-band Synthetic Aperture Radar (SIR-C/X-SAR) is part of
NASA's Mission to Planet Earth. The radars illuminate Earth with microwaves,
allowing detailed observations at any time, regardless of weather or sunlight
conditions. SIR-C/X-SAR uses three microwave wavelengths: L-band (24 cm),
C-band (6 cm) and X-band (3 cm). The multi-frequency data will be used by the
international scientific community to better understand the global environment
and how it is changing. The SIR-C/X-SAR data, complemented by aircraft and
ground studies, will give scientists clearer insights into those environmental
changes which are caused by nature and those changes which are induced by human
activity. SIR-C was developed by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. X-SAR was
developed by the Dornier and Alenia Spazio companies for the German space
agency, Deutsche Agentur fuer Raumfahrtangelegenheiten (DARA), and the Italian
space agency, Agenzia Spaziale Italiana (ASI), with the Deutsche
Forschungsanstalt fuer Luft und Raumfahrt e.V.(DLR), the major partner in
science, operations and data processing of X-SAR.
![[KENNEDY SPACE CENTER]](KSCAREA.GIF)