POLARIS Antarctic campaign

ESA’s Earth Explorer 7 mission, Biomass, is to be launched early 2025, and in support of this mission an airborne campaign is planned for the Antarctic 2023/24 season. The Biomass sensor is a P-band synthetic aperture radar (SAR), and the airborne campaign will make use of the POLARIS radar, which is a P-band SAR, too, but POLARIS can also be configured as an ice sounding radar. POLARIS data will be acquired in the Dome C region and over the Cook ice shelf with the aim to assess (1) the potential of using the Antarctic ice sheet for Biomass calibration and (2) the feasibility of mapping the basal topography of ice shelves by means of SAR tomography. More generally, supplementary glaciological information is expected to be obtained at P-band, because P-band penetrates deeper into firn and ice than the radar bands that have previously been used from space.