ANALYSIS OF SATELLITE CONFIGURATIONS FOR SPACEBORNE SAR INTERFEROMETRY

Abstract- Spaceborne bi – and multistatic SAR is an attractive approach for along– track and across–track interferometry. This may be obtained by a set of low cost, passive receiver equipped micro satellites which simultaneously record the signals transmitted from an already existing spaceborne satellite. In this paper we intro-duce several multistatic SAR configurations, their fuel consumption, and present the results of an interferometric perfomance analysis for the satellites ALOS, ENVISAT, and TerraSAR–X. This analysis includes errors due to SNR, range and azimuth am-biguities, geometric decorrelation for flat surfaces. We finally conclude with an estimation of the required position accuracy for the different proposed formations. Interferometric SAR is an attractive and prosperous approach to extract geophysical parameters from the earth’s surface. To achieve high quality along–track and across–track interferograms on a global scale, several spaceborne bi – and multi–static SAR missions have been suggested. By combining already operating transmit satellites with new spaceborne configurations one can benefit and kee