insar-management-system-v2/experiments/isce2_sbas_timeseries/notes/PHASE0_SAMPLE_STACK_SELECTION.md

Phase 0 Sample Stack Selection

Updated: 2026-04-03

Selected baseline sample

Current baseline sample stack:

• group key:
  • LT1A|STRIP1|HH|DESCENDING|E123.3_N46.1
• manifest:
  • experiments/isce2_sbas_timeseries/configs/sample_stack_e123p3_n46p1.json

Sample summary

• satellite:
  • LT1A
• mode:
  • STRIP1
• polarization:
  • HH
• orbit direction:
  • DESCENDING
• scene count:
  • 5
• dates:
  • 20250118
  • 20250315
  • 20250510
  • 20250705
  • 20250830
• recommended reference date:
  • 20250510
• receiving stations observed:
  • SYC
  • KSC

Why this sample is useful

• It already satisfies a minimal SBAS smoke-test stack size.
• All scenes share the same:
  • satellite
  • imaging mode
  • polarization
  • orbit direction
  • tile key
• The dates are evenly spaced enough to act as a first time-series experiment set.

Important adjacent-tile signal

This sample is not isolated.

The same date sequence also appears in multiple neighboring descending tiles, including:

• E123.5_N46.6
• E123.6_N47.0
• E123.8_N47.5
• E123.9_N48.0
• E124.5_N49.9
• E124.7_N50.3
• E124.8_N50.8
• E125.0_N51.3
• E125.1_N51.8
• E125.3_N52.2
• E125.5_N52.7

These neighboring tiles share the same 5 acquisition dates:

• 20250118
• 20250315
• 20250510
• 20250705
• 20250830

Implication

This strongly suggests the data pool contains a larger repeated strip-family, not just isolated scenes.

Recommended experiment order:

1. Start with one tile-level stack smoke test using E123.3_N46.1.
2. If stack-prep works, expand to multiple adjacent tiles with the same date family.
3. Only after that, test a wider strip or mosaic strategy.

Current risk judgment

The main remaining uncertainty is still not scene selection.

The main uncertainty is:

• how to convert LT-1 per-scene tiff + meta.xml folders
• into a stack layout and sensor input form acceptable to the ISCE2 stripmap stack workflow