AN INNOVATIVE SPACEBORNE P-BAND SAR MISSION BASED ON SMALL SATELLITES AND FORMATION FLYING TECHNOLOGIES

摘要

This paper focuses on a new concept for spaceborne Pbandrnradar implementation, that is distributed SyntheticrnAperture Radar (SAR) based on formation flying. Thisrnapproach can in principle allow to overcome physicalrnconstraints that limit the performance of monolithicrnSARs, leading in the P-band case to huge antennas andrnhard swath/resolution trade-offs. The proposed SAR isrnbased on a larger transmitting satellite and a set ofrnlightweight receiving-only platforms. This architecturernalso allows for multi-mission capabilities. In particular,rnin the P-band case forests observation and biomassrnestimation can be combined with interferometric icernsounding. Payload concept and architecture arernclarified, mission analysis and spacecrafts design arernpresented. The formation control architecture is basedrnon Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS)rnreceivers, an Inter Satellite Link (ISL) with WirelessrnFidelity (WiFi) protocol, and micro propulsion thrusters.rnPreliminary considerations and numerical results onrnformation control are pointed out.