Onboard Data Compression of Synthetic Aperture Radar Data: Status and Prospects

Synthetic aperture radar (SAR) instruments on spacecraft are capable of producing huge quantities of data. Onboard lossy data compression is commonly used to reduce the burden on the communication link. In this paper an overview is given of various SAR data compression techniques, along with an assessment of how much improvement is possible (and practical) and how to approach the problem of obtaining it. Synthetic aperture radar (SAR) instruments on spacecraft are capable of acquiring huge quantities of data. As a result, the available downlink rate and onboard storage capacity can be limiting factors in mission design for spacecraft with SAR instruments. This is true both for Earth-orbiting missions and missions to more distant targets such as Venus, Titan, and Europa. (Of course for missions beyond Earth orbit downlink rates are much lower and thus potentially much more limiting.) Typically spacecraft with SAR instruments use some form of data compression in order to reduce the storage size and/or downlink rate necessary to accommodate the SAR data. Our aim here is to give an overview of SAR data compression strategies that have been considered, and to assess the prospects for additional improvements