A MirrorSAR Case Study Based on the X-Band High Resolution Wide Swath Satellite (HRWS)

Abstract

The paper reports results of a concrete MirrorSAR mission analysis study with the planned X-band HRWS satellite as transmitter. The driving goal is a next generation global DEM with a much better height performance compared to TanDEM-X. Three small passive receive satellites are spanning differently sized interferometric baselines by flying in-terleaved Helix orbits. Several system engineering topics associated to the MirrorSAR concept are discussed. The multi-static echo window timing is investigated including the along-track separation between transmitter and receivers. The interaction between helix orbit baseline design, Doppler steering and phase preserving MirrorSAR link geometry is ana-lyzed. Advanced SAR and DEM performance estimations conclude the paper.