Bistatic radar as a tool for earth investigation using small satellites

Bistatic radar is a facility for the Earth remote sensing, which uses large spatial diversity between its transmitter and receiver. Nomogram method is proposed to determine the radar's parameters. Analysis of the nomograms has shown that modern onboard radio facilities allow to obtain spatial resolution of about 100 m at the wavelength λ = 3 cm for LEO satellite (H = 350 km). Experiments of bistatic radiolocation of the Earth near the radioshadow zone were provided using telecommunication link “MIR” orbital station — GEO satellite at wavelength λ = 32 cm. For the first time in practice of bistatic radiolocation of the Earth from space reflected signal in radioshadow zone was observed.The analysis of experimental results verified the developed radiophysical model with the value of sea water conductivity σ = 7.0 mo/m and absorption coefficient due to atmospheric oxygen χ = 0.0096±0.0024 dB/km.