An innovative spaceborne P-band mission based on small satellites and formation flying technologies

The paper focuses on a new concept for spaceborne P-band radar implementation, that is distributed SAR based on formation flying. This approach can in principle allow to overcome physical constraints that limit the performance of monolithic SARs, leading in the P-band case to huge antennas and hard swath/resolution trade-offs. The proposed SAR is based on a larger transmitting satellite and a set of lightweight receiving-only platforms. This architecture also allows for multi-mission capabilities. In particular, in the P-band case forests observation and biomass estimation can be combined with interferometric ice sounding. Payload concept is clarified, and mission analysis and spacecraft design process are described. The formation control architecture is based on GNSS receivers, an Inter Satellite Link with WiFi protocol, and micro propulsion thrusters. Preliminary considerations and numerical results on formation control are pointed out