Wavemill radar image
Success! Following my previous blog entry, the power inverter for the plane was replaced and we were able to fly on the nights of 26 and 27 October in complete darkness above Liverpool Bay and East Anglesey.
Luckily – unlike the human eye – active radar instruments can see through the dark.
The wavemill simulator instrument on the plane performed flawlessly, collecting the radar images over water and land in the darkness using a very special “squinted” geometry, which is the main characteristic of the potential future Wavemill mission in space.
One of the radar images was collected over the Menai straits. The dark areas correspond to water.
The next step will now be to process very carefully all of the radar data and see if and how well the currents in the area can be mapped using this new technique.
Wavemill campaign location
If successful, an important first step towards a global ocean current mapping mission will have been made. Something to look forward too !
In the meantime a big thank you to field participants of the campaign for their effort: Martin Cohen and Neil Hughes from Astrium ltd UK and Ben Cox and John Corly from RVL Group.
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