Mission analysis and design of a bistatic synthetic aperture radar on board a small satellite

摘要

This paper is aimed at a feasibility study of a new space-based observation technique: bistatic synthetic aperture radar, e.g. an active microwave sensor operating with separated transmit- ting and receiving antennae. Assuming ESA ENVISAT ASAR as main mission, a small satellite (BISSAT) equipped with a receiving-only antenna and flying in formation with ENVISAT is stud- ied in details. In addition to conventional ASAR images, echoes gathered by BISSAT form an additional data set.