A joint space-borne radar technology demonstration mission for NASA and the Air Force

• Main Authors: Rosen, P.A., Davis, M.E.
• Format: Conference Proceeding
• Language: English
• Subjects: Apertures; Frequency; Geoscience; L-band; NASA; Shape measurement; Space missions; Space technology; Spaceborne radar; Surveillance
• ISSN: 1095-323X; 2996-2358
• DOI: 10.1109/AERO.2003.1235073

NASA and the Air Force are currently studying joint technology demonstration concepts for large aperture Space Based Radar (SBR) systems. The mission focuses on elements of NASA's earth science enterprise strategic plan and Air Force long term needs for global airborne and ground moving target indication (GMTI and AMTI) surveillance, and represents an unprecedented multi-agency approach to scientific and technological advancement of spaceborne radar. The preliminary design for the system specifies a low center frequency such as L-band, a large physical aperture between 50 and 150 square meters, and on-board processing capability for synthetic aperture radar (SAR) and moving target indication applications. The key technologies requiring demonstration of technical maturity and affordability are the active electronic scanned aperture (AESA) and the realtime On-Board Processing (OBP). The system concept incorporates active metrology for measurement of the shape of the aperture, and electronics and processing capability for active compensation of the aperture surface deformation. The goal of the mission is to demonstrate the ability to maintain coherence in a very large aperture in the space environment, to show scalability to larger apertures, and to demonstrate the ability to deliver fault-tolerant real-time products in space. The systems also permit characterization of spaceborne L-band phenomenology and validate adaptive processing for moving target detection. This paper describes the trades and a technology risk addressed in this study, and highlights those elements in that could be developed in concern with other SBR programs. The work is being conducted jointly by Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, and the Air Force Research Laboratory, both under contract with NASA.