Development of SAR Payload for 80 kg Class Micro-Satellite Based on Active Phased Array Antenna

Inhalt:
The development of small satellites for remote sensing is being actively conducted with the advent of the New Space paradigm. The on-going project, namely, Small SAR Technology Experimental Project (S-STEP), aims to develop a light-weight and cost-effective synthetic aperture radar (SAR) satellite. The SAR system is intended to provide SAR images with high resolution of 1 m in stripmap/video SAR modes, and 4 m in ScanSAR mode. This paper presents the design and development of an innovative high-performance X-band SAR payload for the 80-kg class micro-satellite. The S-STEP system is designed to have a multi-functional integrated structure with panel-type configuration to effectively reduce the total weight of the satellite. The high gain active phased array antenna with dimension of 2.0 m x 1.0 m has been designed to achieve the high resolution SAR image quality. The S-STEP system is currently undergoing development phase for engineering qualification model (EQM). The SAR mission, SAR payload requirements, concept design of EQM, system design tool, and SAR performance estimation results are described throughout the paper.