Friedhelm Rostan

The C-SAR instrument for the GMES sentinel-1 mission

The paper describes the C-SAR instrument for the GMES Sentinel-1 mission. After a brief introduction of the Sentinel-1 instrument requirements a design description of the overall C-SAR instrument as well as of its major subsystems (i.e. the SAR Antenna Subsystem (SAS) and the SES Electronic Subsystem (SES)), is given. The paper concludes with an overview on the predicted instrument performance.

Copernicus Sentinel-1 Satellite and C-SAR instrument

The Copernicus Sentinel-1 Earth Radar Observatory, a mission funded by the European Union and developed by ESA, is a constellation of two C-band radar satellites. The satellites have been conceived to be a continuous and reliable source of C-band SAR imagery for operational applications such as mapping of global landmasses, coastal zones and monitoring of shipping routes. The Sentinel-1 satellites are built by an industrial consortium led by Thales Alenia Space Italia as Prime Contractor and with AIRBUS Defence and Space as SAR Instrument Contractor. The paper describes the general satellite architecture, AIT flow and the satellite key performances. It provides also an overview on the CSAR Instrument, its development status and prelaunch SAR performance prediction.

C-SAR instrument design for the Sentinel-1 mission

The ESA Sentinels constitute the first series of operational satellites responding to the Earth Observation needs of the EU-ESA Global Monitoring for Environment and Security (GMES) programme. The GMES space component relies on existing and planned space assets as well as on new complementary developments by ESA. This paper describes the Sentinel-1 mission, an imaging synthetic aperture radar (SAR) satellite constellation at C-band. It provides an overview of the mission requirements, its applications and the technical concept for the system.

CryoSat prelaunch status and performance

The CryoSat Earth Explorer Opportunity Mission will be the first mission to accurately determine the marine and land ice mass fluxes at a global scale. Its space segment is currently in its final test phase and will be shipped to its launch site Plesetzk in Russia by end of July. This paper gives a brief overview on the measured prelaunch performance of the CryoSat payload.

CryoSat payload calibration and characterization

The CryoSat Earth Explorer Opportunity Mission will allow an accurate determination of the marine and land ice mass fluxes at a global scale. This paper gives a brief overview on the CryoSat payload calibration. Special attention is given to the calibration of the interferometric baseline attitude, which is a novelty with respect to conventional radar altimeter calibration.

Verification of scan-on-receive beamforming for X-Band HRWS applications

This paper gives an overview on current activities at Astrium GmbH in Friedrichshafen in the field of technology development for future space-borne X-SAR systems based on Digital Beam Forming. The focus is on the verification of scan-on-receive beamforming in the frame of the DLR funded “High-Resolution-Wide-Swath (HRWS) demonstrator” project.