The RADARSAT-2/3 topographic mission

Author

Lee, Pok F. ; James, Kenneth

Author_Institution

MacDonald, Dettwiler & Associates Ltd., Richmond, BC, Canada

Volume

1

fYear

2001

fDate

2001

Firstpage

499

Abstract

The RADARSAT-2 Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) satellite currently under development is jointly funded by the Canadian government and MacDonald Dettwiler. RADARSAT-2 will further Canada\´s world-leading position in the world of synthetic aperture radar Earth observation, and provide an enormous opportunity for growth in technical expertise and environmental, agricultural, and commercial applications. Plans are now in preparation for the development of a RADARSAT-3 satellite to be operated interferometrically in tandem with RADARSAT-2 to provide very high precision global topographical data. This paper will describe the mission concept, explain the key characteristics of the two satellites, and discuss some of the design and operational issues which have been studied The system concept potentially includes both Bistatic and "Pursuit Monostatic" operation of the two radars, and both options will be described

Keywords

geophysical equipment; geophysical techniques; remote sensing by radar; spaceborne radar; synthetic aperture radar; terrain mapping; topography (Earth); Canada; MacDonald Dettwiler; RADARSAT; RADARSAT-2; RADARSAT-3; SAR; Topographic Mission; bistatic; geophysical measurement technique; land surface topography; mission concept; pursuit monostatic; radar remote sensing; satellite instrument; spaceborne radar; synthetic aperture radar; terrain mapping; Business; Earth; Government; Image resolution; Interferometry; Postal services; Read only memory; Satellites; Space vehicles; Synthetic aperture radar;

fLanguage

English

Publisher

ieee

Conference_Titel

Geoscience and Remote Sensing Symposium, 2001. IGARSS '01. IEEE 2001 International

Conference_Location

Sydney, NSW

Print_ISBN

0-7803-7031-7

Type

conf

DOI

10.1109/IGARSS.2001.976202

Filename

976202