Spaceborne SAR systems and technologies

Design and development of Spaceborne Synthetic Aperture Radar Systems is one of the major activities at EADS Astrium, Friedrichshafen, Germany. Examples of recent and current developments are the TerraSAR-X and the TanDEM-X Satellites, both operating at X-band with multi-polarization capability. At C-Band, the Sentinel-1 SAR Instrument is a further example for active phased array radar currently under development in our company. In addition to the design and manufacturing of ‘state of the art’ active phased array SAR sensors, new techniques and technologies are under preparation. The overall objective is to upgrade significantly the image performance, to enlarge the capabilities of spaceborne SAR and to improve the performance to cost ratio. For this, digital beamforming is a key element.