NASA’s Commercial Satellite Data Acquisition program issued two reports evaluating the quality of Umbra X‑Band Synthetic Aperture Radar data for the Earth science research community. The findings inform NASA program management and data users about the usability of the commercial SAR data.

The CSDA program was established to locate, assess, and acquire commercial satellite data that advances NASA’s Earth science objectives. Umbra’s SAR constellation provides high‑spatial‑resolution X‑band imagery that can be re‑tasked for rapid data collection, supporting monitoring of fast‑changing environmental conditions such as harmful algal blooms.

The Principal Investigator Evaluation Summary noted strengths including high spatial resolution, frequent taskable acquisitions with short latency, flexible imaging geometry across azimuth and incidence angles, and an open data program. The same report identified weaknesses such as variable geolocation accuracy, limited software compatibility, incomplete metadata, and gaps in technical documentation.

NASA subject matter experts performed radiometric and geometric analyses on the single‑look complex Level 1 data and select Level 2 products, confirming that the spatial resolution met Umbra’s specifications. However, they found that geolocation accuracy did not consistently meet the company’s stated performance, concluding that the overall positioning of the data fell short of expected precision. In addition, the experts determined that the radiometric characteristics of the data underperformed compared with well‑calibrated reference SAR systems.

The CSDA program intends to continue assessing commercial data sources, and additional testing may refine the accuracy of Umbra’s positioning and radiometric performance for future NASA applications.