The Sentinel-1 SAR instrument: Current status and outlook

Spaceborne SARs with electronically scanned antennas are in use on European satellites since the launch of Envisat in March 2002. Most modern SAR instruments meanwhile utilize this kind of antennas due to the fact that significantly better system performance together with higher flexibility to address user specific needs is achievable. The paper will discuss firstly state-of-the-art phased array technology as used for the European Sentinel-1 C-band SAR and explore secondly the capabilities of digital beam forming implementation for the next generation of SAR systems.