Cosmo-Skymed: First results of Sar in-flight calibration

This paper reports the first results of the in-flight calibration of the COSMO-SkyMed SAR instrument., developed by Thales Alenia Space Italia under contract of Italian Space Agency and Italian Ministry of Defence. Instrument calibration is based on devoted calibration modes for the testing of the antenna on a T/R module basis, and on the development of an antenna model for the prediction of the antenna patterns on the basis of the measurement taken during the on-ground characterisation campaign. Antenna model will be used during the in-flight operations for the prediction of the beams; both T/R module data achieved by internal calibration and external calibration measurements will be used to update the model during the commissioning phase.