missions

SAOCOM-1A

SAOCOM-1A is the first flight unit of Argentina's SAOCOM programme, operated by CONAE and manufactured by INVAP. It carries SAR-L, an L-band synthetic aperture radar, and flies a sun-synchronous orbit at 620 km altitude with a 16-day repeat cycle, reduced to 8 days when paired with SAOCOM-1B. The L-band radar penetrates cloud cover and vegetation canopy, making it well suited for soil moisture measurement, hydrological monitoring, agricultural crop assessment, deforestation tracking, emergency response, and interferometric surface-deformation mapping. CEOS records the satellite as operational nominal; WMO OSCAR confirms the SAR-L instrument has been active since January 2019. Launch is recorded as 2018-10-07 by CEOS (local date) and 2018-10-08 by WMO OSCAR (UTC). ^[1]^[2]^[3]^[4]

Full specification

All fields

current status	Operational
operator	Comision Nacional de Actividades Espaciales (CONAE)
launch vehicle	Spacex Falcon 9
Launched	2018-10-08
planned decommission	2026-12-31
orbit type	Sun-synchronous orbit, 620 km altitude, 97.89 deg inclination
swath km	350
revisit days	16
tasking supported	Yes
current geographic priority	Argentina, SIASGE emergency-management users, and global catalogue acquisitions

Supply chain position

carries instrument SAR-L (SAOCOM L-band SAR)

operated by Comision Nacional de Actividades Espaciales (CONAE)

launched on Spacex Falcon 9

related to Soil moisture

related to Flooding

related to Deforestation

related to Land cover change

SAR backscatter imaging → demonstrated SAR-L (SAOCOM L-band SAR)

InSAR - surface deformation → demonstrated SAR-L (SAOCOM L-band SAR)

Polarimetric SAR - target decomposition → demonstrated SAR-L (SAOCOM L-band SAR)

Sources

[1]CEOS MIM SAOCOM 1A mission summaryagency doc-2026-06-14
[2]WMO OSCAR SAOCOM-1A satellite recordagency doc2026-02-022026-06-14
[3]INVAP SAOCOM mission review and applicationsoperator engineering-2026-06-14
[4]USGS SAOCOM-1 L-band InSAR assessmentpeer reviewed2024-07-192026-06-14

Cite https://eo-atlas.org/missions/saocom-1a Markdown twin → Field definitions → Suggest a correction →

How to cite this page

Plain text

SAOCOM-1A. EO-Atlas, SpectraWorks B.V. https://eo-atlas.org/missions/saocom-1a (CC BY 4.0)

BibTeX

@misc{eoatlas:missions:saocom-1a,
  title = {SAOCOM-1A},
  author = {{EO-Atlas}},
  publisher = {SpectraWorks B.V.},
  note = {CC BY 4.0},
  url = {https://eo-atlas.org/missions/saocom-1a}
}