A bistatic SAR mission for earth observation based on a small satellite

The authors present a new scientific space mission consisting of a satellite carrying a receiving- only SAR which receives the signal transmitted by the ENVISAT-1 SAR. The integration of ENVISAT-1 SAR and bistatic radar data offers an improved potentiality of surface classification, three-dimensional observation, and the opportunity of advanced scientific experiments in the field of bistatic scattering. The small satellite nominal orbit and the attitude manoeuvres are designed in order to maintain an adequate overlap between the two radar swaths along the whole orbit, taking into account the ENVISAT-1 attitude and pointing. A preliminary satellite design (2-year lifetime) is then performed to evaluate the orbit decay and to determine the appropriate orbit manoeuvres (every 4 days) to control the satellites relative phase. The numerical simulation shows that a spacecraft of about 584kg is able to meet the mission requirements.     

Attitude and antenna pointing design of bistatic radar formations

Spaceborne bistatic radar observations allow original scientific applications to be carried out. Furthermore, assuming transmitting and receiving antennas operating on separated platforms, key design issues relevant to formation flying must be solved. Mathematical models are presented for computation of attitude and pointing angles. Main design constraint is the capability of maintaining swath overlap, but selected strategy also depends on the cost of spacecraft attitude maneuvering or antenna beam electronic steering. The model has been applied considering a large transmitting/receiving primary mission and a receiving-only small satellite. In this case antenna steering was preferred. Finally, if the passive antenna is smaller than the active one, overlap maintenance is simplified, obviating the need for yaw rotations.     

Performance of spaceborne bistatic synthetic aperture radar

This paper reports on a model developed for evaluating major system performance of a spaceborne bistatic synthetic aperture radar (SAR) for remote sensing applications. The procedure accounts for formation flying aspects. It is particularly aimed at comparison of monostatic and bistatic cases, and, as a test case, it is applied to study a novel configuration, based on a small satellite equipped with a receiving-only antenna orbiting in tandem with a large, noncooperative transmitting spacecraft, the Italian COSMO-SkyMed mission. Numerical results and plots show the effectiveness of the procedure as a mission design tool and put in evidence key issues and characteristics of the proposed spaceborne bistatic formation.