Sentinel-1 is the first spacecraft in the European Space Agency’s Copernicus Program satellite system. This mission comprises two satellites, Sentinel-1A and Sentinel-1B, which circle in the same orbital plane. They have a C-band SAR (synthetic aperture radar) equipment that collects data in any weather condition, day or night. The satellites offer a maximum spatial resolution of 5 meters and a sweep of up to 400 kilometers. The collected data is easily accessible and a variety of users can freely access the data for public, scientific, or commercial reasons.
The detection of vessels using Sentinel-1 SAR data is a typical domain-specific use-case for complex data science. We need deeper insights of imagery intelligence and the common methods and tools involved. There is also a need for huge training datasets, including access to monitored vessel tracks.