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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 statusoperational
operatorComision Nacional de Actividades Espaciales (CONAE)
launch vehiclespacex-falcon-9
Launched2018-10-08
planned decommission2026-12-31
orbit typeSun-synchronous orbit, 620 km altitude, 97.89 deg inclination
swath km350
revisit days16
tasking supportedtrue
current geographic priorityArgentina, SIASGE emergency-management users, and global catalogue acquisitions
Last updated2026-06-14
claim statusagency-sourced
Where this fits, supply chain

Compositional position

this ——— SAR-L (SAOCOM L-band SAR) payload
this ——— Soil moisture related-topic
this ——— Flooding related-topic
this ——— Deforestation related-topic
this ——— Land cover change related-topic
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
Cite https://eo-atlas.org/missions/saocom-1a Markdown twin → Field definitions →