A small satellite C-band SAR mission payload definition for disasters management

Taiwan is an island with various high mountains created by tectonic plate collision where continent building is still active with numerous earthquake activities. Taiwan is also in one of the most prevalent monsoon and typhoon areas and they can bring along heavy precipitation that produce great threat of mud slide and land slide in the mountains. Remote mountain areas can only rely on satellite monitoring before, during, and after heavy rains where the optical monitoring satellites won´t be able to provide the timely data or information. SAR satellites, with their advantages of all-weather capability, repeat pass, fine spatial resolution and wide swath, can provide coverage at disaster locations in the island, disaster assessment and resource survey provided the operating frequency to be lower enough as indicated in the low cost C-band SAR satellite payload defined in this paper. Based on the payload technology tradeoff analysis, the C-band system with GaN SSPA power amplifier was selected by comparing it with the X-band system with the TWTA technology which was described in our early stage of mission definition and analysis.