The progress of the flood in Emilia-Romagna can be followed hour by hour thanks to the images of the Cosmo-SkyMed satellite and processed by Copernicus, the European environmental protection service through images from Space. L’image above was acquired at 16.55 on Thursday 18 by the 2/HR radar on board the satellitedeveloped by the Italian Space Agency (ASI) in cooperation with the Ministry of Defense, elaborated and released by the Copernicus Rapid Mapping at 1.30 pm on Friday 19. The flooded areas can be seen in light blue-blue (which have expanded considerably in the last two days), by enlarging the map it is possible to go down to very detailed details, following the flooded areas practically field by field, street by street. One more tool available to relief and civil protection operating in disaster areas.
Cosmo-SkyMed
Cosmo-SkyMed is a constellation of satellites equipped with synthetic aperture radar (Sar) working in the X band, therefore able to see even at night and in any weather condition. The first satellite of the constellation was launched on June 7, 2007 from the US base of Vandenberg, in California, from where the second also took off on December 9 of the same year. The third satellite was launched on October 25, 2008. The first generation system was therefore completed on November 5, 2010 with the launch of the fourth and last satellite. On December 18, 2019, the second Second Generation satellite (CSG) was launched, followed on February 1, 2022 by the second CSG sent into orbit with a Space X Falcon 9 rocket. The constellation can currently boast five operational satellites.