Cassini Titan Radar Mapper

Author

Elachi, Charles ; Im, Eastwood ; Roth, Ladislav E. ; Werner, Charles L.

Author_Institution

Jet Propulsion Lab., California Inst. of Technol., Pasadena, CA, USA

Volume

79

Issue

6

fYear

1991

fDate

6/1/1991 12:00:00 AM

Firstpage

867

Lastpage

880

Abstract

The Cassini Titan Radar Mapper is a multimode radar instrument designed to probe the optically inaccessible surface of Titan, Saturn´s largest moon. The instrument is to be included in the payload of the Cassini Saturn Mission, scheduled for launch in 1995. The individual modes of Cassini Radar Mapper will allow topographic mapping and surface imaging at few hundred meters resolution. The requirements that lay behind the design are briefly discussed, and the configuration and capability of the instrument are described. The present limited knowledge of Titan´s surface and the measurement requirements imposed on the radar instrument are addressed. Also discussed are the Cassini mission and the projected orbits, which imposed another set of design constraints that led to the multitude of modes and to an unconventional antenna configuration. The antenna configuration and the different radar modes are described

Keywords

Saturn; astronomical instruments; planetary satellites; radar applications; radioastronomy; space vehicles; Cassini Saturn Mission; Cassini Titan Radar Mapper; Titan; antenna configuration; design constraints; multimode radar; radar modes; surface imaging; topographic mapping; Instruments; Laser radar; Moon; Optical design; Payloads; Probes; Radar antennas; Radar imaging; Saturn; Surface topography;

fLanguage

English

Journal_Title

Proceedings of the IEEE

Publisher

ieee

ISSN

0018-9219

Type

jour

DOI

10.1109/5.90164

Filename

90164