Filippo Biondi

first generation for satellites where these satellites had the payload constituted by a synthetic aperture radar.

What it is?

Synthetic aperture radar is a radar, so just sending electromagnetic waves and receiving the echoes,

But there is the magic word called synthetic.

What it means synthetic?

Synthetic, it means that while the satellite is flying on its orbit, which is a low Earth orbit, approximately 600 kilometers in distance with respect to the surface of the Earth, traveling at the- So I'm sorry, but that is 600 kilometers would be about

400 miles?

400 miles, yes.

And planes fly at 35,000 feet, so they're flying at six miles or something like that.

So while it's low altitude for a satellite, it's still up there.

Yes.

It is the first, let's say, distance where the atmosphere is nearly not present.

It is the minimum distance where we don't have the atmosphere.

And so they can run very fast, seven kilometers per second.

It means that in one second, they did seven kilometers.

That's very important.

And how fast is, so what is that?

Thousands of miles per hour.

Maybe 50,000 miles per hour or something like that.

Yes, because the atmosphere at that velocity, it is like concrete.