An airborne 35 GHz radar interferometer in development at the university of Massachusetts

The Topographic Ice Mapping Mission (TIMMi) instrument is a unique millimeter-wave interferometric radar system operating at 35 GHz (Ka-band). It was constructed, in part, to advance the technology readiness level of NASA´s Surface Water and Ocean Topography (SWOT) mission, a spaceborne platform that will globally map the altimetry of Earth´s water to gain insight into surface water interactions and dynamics. Previous ground deployments of TIMMi, while successful in demonstrating the abilities of the system, suffered from poor SNR due to high incidence angles. TIMMi was most recently deployed on an airborne platform to take advantage of the lower angle of incidence and to prove its capability in measuring large swaths of topography at high resolution. This paper outlines some of the challenges and considerations for adapting the smaller Ka-band system to an airborne platform, as well as some preliminary results from these datasets.