Implementation and Results of Contractors' S-1C End-to-End System Calibration, Issue 1.0 (Report for IOCR)

Kurzfassung

As already done for S-1A in 2014 and S1-B in 2016, in addition to the commissioning of S-1C executed by ESA, an independent SAR system calibration has been performed by the Microwave and Radar Institute of the German Aerospace Center (DLR) in response to ESA's SoW as part of S-1C commissioning phase (CP) campaign. This independent calibration has once more been executed using both (i) the Institute's analysis and evaluation tools, already developed and applied successfully for calibrating Sentinel-1A/B in 2014 and 2016, and (ii) the same DLR reference targets (located west of Munich/Oberpfaffenhofen in South Germany) as for S-1A/B, as S-1C flies in the same orbit as its siblings. These DLR reference targets, a total of three transponders and three corner reflectors, were deployed related to the coverage of S-1A and have been maintained and successfully operated since launch of S-1A in April 2014. The present calibration report summarizes all activities and results which are necessary in order to achieve an independent calibration of S-1C. These activities are based on the overall SAR system calibration and verification concept defined for S-1A and follows the strategy described by the in-orbit calibration plan. This document reports the end-to-end S-1C calibration results achieved with the mission elements status as deployed at IOCR.