PUBLIC INFORMATION OFFICE
JET PROPULSION LABORATORY
CALIFORNIA INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY
NATIONAL AERONAUTICS AND SPACE ADMINISTRATION
PASADENA, CALIFORNIA 91109. TELEPHONE (818) 354-5011

PHOTO CAPTION                                             P-43941
                                                   April 18, 1994
                                          Flevoland X, C & L band

This is a three-frequency false color image of Flevoland, The
Netherlands, centered at 52.4 degrees north latitude, 5.4 degrees
east longitude.  This image was acquired by the Spaceborne
Imaging Radar-C and X-Band Synthetic Aperture Radar (SIR-C/X-SAR)
aboard space shuttle Endeavour on April 14, 1994.  It was
produced by combining data from the X-band, C-band and L-band
radars.  The area shown is approximately 25 kilometers by 28
kilometers (15-1/2 by 17-1/2 miles).  Flevoland, which fills the
lower two-thirds of the image, is a very flat area that is made
up of reclaimed land that is used for agriculture and forestry. 
At the top of the image, across the canal from Flevoland, is an
older forest shown in red; the city of Harderwijk is shown in
white on the shore of the canal.  At this time of the year, the
agricultural fields are bare soil, and they show up in this image
in blue.  The changes in the brightness of the blue areas are
equal to the changes in roughness.  The dark blue areas are water
and the small dots in the canal are boats.  This SIR-C/X-SAR
supersite is being used for both calibration and agricultural
studies.  Several soil and crop ground-truth studies will be
conducted during the shuttle flight.  In addition, about 10
calibration devices and 10 corner reflectors have been deployed
to calibrate and monitor the radar signal.  One of these
transponders can be seen as a bright star in the lower right
quadrant of the image.  This false-color image was made using L-
band total power in the red channel, C-band total power in the
green channel, and X-band VV polarization in the blue channel.

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Spaceborne Imaging Radar-C and X-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.

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