The SAOCOM-CS mission: ESA's first bistatic and tomographic L-band mission

摘要

The concept of a passive receiving small satellite flying in formation with an active satellite for bistatic Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) imaging has been the subject of numerous national and international studies. In 2013, ESA received an offer from the National Commission for Space Activities of Argentina (CONAE) to launch a small satellite with the SAOCOM-1b satellite, and to collaborate during the mission exploitation phase. The main SAOCOM-1b payload is an L-band polarimetric SAR instrument. This offer, provides a unique opportunity to the Earth observation science community to demonstrate at global scale the science capabilities of an L-band active-passive satellite constellation through dedicated in-orbit experiments and to secure valuable feedback within a short time frame on the scientific potential of L-band SAR mission constellations.