Radarsat-2 Mission: Overview And Development Status
Peter Meisl
Senior Systems Engineer,
Alan A. Thompson
Senior Systems Engineer,
Anthony P. Luscombe
Senior Systems Engineer
MacDonald, Dettwiler and Associates Ltd.
13800 Commerce Parkway, Richmond, B.C. Canada V6V 2J3
Tel: (604) 278-3411, Fax: (604) 276-2856,
E-mail: pm@mda.ca
Keywords:RADARSAT-2, RADARSAT, SAR, Polarimetry, GMTI
Abstract
RADARSAT-2, Canada's next generation earth observation satellite, is co-funded by the Canadian Space Agency (CSA) and MacDonald Dettwiler, and is the first step towards full commercialization of the RADARSAT program. The imaging sensor on the satellite is a C-band Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) capable of operating in a wide variety of imaging modes. All imaging modes of the current RADARSAT-1 satellite will be provided, as well as some new modes that incorporate important innovations and improvements. The horizontal co-polarization (HH) of RADARSAT-1 will be supplemented by options for vertical co-polarization (VV) and cross-polarization (HV or VH), and there will be new Quad-Polarization modes providing fully polarimetric data sets. The other major new mode is referred to as Ultra-Fine, providing swath imaging with resolution of about 3m in each dimension. Re-visit times will be reduced since all imaging modes will be available either to the left or right sides of the satellite track. This paper gives an outline of the RADARSAT-2 mission capabilities and gives an update on the development status.
1 Radarsat-2 Mission Overview
RADARSAT-2 is a Canadian spacecraft carrying a C-band SAR (5.4 GHz). It will provide users with advanced, commercially-available space-borne Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) imagery having fully polarimetric modes and resolution as fine as 3 metres. This increased capability will provide a high level of detail for research, analysis, and commercial operations in a wide variety of applications: agriculture, forestry, mapping, surveillance, environmental monitoring, natural resource exploration and management, and many dynamic ocean and sea-ice processes.
The launch is scheduled for April, 2003 and the mission duration will be 7 years. MacDonald, Dettwiler, and Associates Ltd. (MDA) of Richmond, British Columbia, is developing the RADARSAT-2 mission in partnership with the Canadian Space Agency. MDA's design for the RADARSAT-2 mission is based on the following principles:
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Build on the RADARSAT-1 experience and infrastructure;
- Maintain continuity of data and operations from RADARSAT-1;
- Inject advanced technology into the program where this technology provides significant benefit at low risk;
- Selectively enhance components of the mission to better meet user, government, and industry needs; and
- Select capability and operational enhancements that help transition the user community to future more sophisticated missions.
In general RADARSAT-2 will operate in a similar manner as RADARSAT-1 in the areas of Mission Control, Mission Planning, and Data Collection and Processing.
2 Radarsat-2 Innovations & Improvements
RADARSAT-2 offers a number of significant improvements over RADARSAT-1:
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3-metre Ultra-Fine resolution. This is the highest-resolution satellite SAR commercially available.
- Left- and right-looking capability. A significant improvement of RADARSAT-2 over its predecessor and other synthetic aperture radar satellites is its ability to image on either the left or right, nominally requiring 10 minutes to switch between either side. This capability will reduce the re-visit time for imaging opportunities of any region.
- Fully-polarimetric imaging modes. These modes allow the use of polarization signatures to characterize targets and support more sophisticated models of scattering from the earth's surface.
- Solid-state Recorders for image data capture and storage at data rates up to 400 Mbps. This offers higher capacity, flexibility and reliability than tape.
- GPS. This provides improved geo-location information with the data.
- More responsive ordering. A more flexible and faster-responding ordering and planning system.
3 Radarsat-2 Imaging Capabilities
The RADARSAT-2 imaging modes are depicted in Figure 1 and listed in Table 1.
Figure 1, RADARSAT-2 Imaging Modes
The ability to continue to service the existing RADARSAT-1 customers, many of whom have a considerable infrastructure in place, is of utmost importance to the RADARSAT-2 mission. In addition to the new beam modes and features which will be offered by RADARSAT-2, all existing beam modes and product types of RADARSAT-1 will continue to be offered. Table 1 summarizes the beam modes which will be available on RADARSAT-2.
New modes which have been added include multiple polarization imaging capabilities, and Ultra-Fine 3-metre resolution modes. All RADARSAT-1 beam modes will continue to be fully
supported, and for these modes, all RADARSAT-1 image quality specifications will be met or exceeded.
