NewSpace SAR: A Game Changer for Spaceborne Synthetic Aperture Radar
- Paper number
IAC-21,B1,2,7,x63695
- Author
Dr. Michelangelo Villano, Germany, German Aerospace Center (DLR)
- Coauthor
Dr. Josef Mittermayer, Germany, German Aerospace Center (DLR)
- Coauthor
Dr. Nertjana Ustalli, Germany, German Aerospace Center (DLR)
- Coauthor
Mr. Maxwell Nogueira Peixoto, Germany, German Aerospace Center (DLR)
- Coauthor
Dr. Se-Yeon Jeon, Germany, German Aerospace Center (DLR)
- Coauthor
Dr. Gerhard Krieger, Germany, Deutsches Zentrum für Luft- und Raumfahrt e.V. (DLR)
- Coauthor
Prof.Dr. Alberto Moreira, Germany, German Aerospace Center (DLR)
- Year
2021
- Abstract
Synthetic aperture radar (SAR) is a key remote sensing technique for Earth observation. While future high-resolution wide-swath SAR missions will deliver weekly images of our planet at global scale, thereby allowing quantification of several essential climate variables, some applications require even more frequent temporal sampling or simultaneous acquisitions from slightly different observation angles. NewSpace SAR denotes all groundbreaking concepts and technologies that enable frequent and enhanced SAR imaging, also by complementing traditional systems, at much more affordable costs. Besides the technological developments, such as mass-produced platforms for constellations of small SAR satellites, application-driven system design plays a fundamental role. In particular, disruptive concepts based on waveform encoding and/or distributed and fractionated SAR help relaxing the design constraints and reducing complexity, size, and cost of the SAR instrument. A prominent example is the MirrorSAR concept that will be implemented in the recently-approved German SAR mission High Resolution Wide Swath (HRWS), where three small satellites acting as radar transponders will allow forming a digital elevation model (DEM) with spatial resolution (4 m x 4 m) much finer than that of the state-of-the art TanDEM-X DEM (12 m x 12 m).
- Abstract document
- Manuscript document
IAC-21,B1,2,7,x63695.pdf (🔒 authorized access only).
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