Preliminary consideration about calibration and attitude error estimation of rotating fanbeam scatterometer using ground Calibration Ground Station

Rotating fan-beam scatterometer (RFSCAT) is a new kind of radar system designed to measure the normalized radar backscatter coefficients (σ°) to derive the near ocean surface wind vectors (OSWV). In this paper, some considerations about the in-orbit calibration of a Ku-band RFSCAT are presented. A simple method based on ground Calibration Ground Stations (CGS) is proposed and the method is verified by simulations. Spacecraft attitude errors are estimated and RFSCAT antenna gain pattern is able to be monitored using Calibration Ground Stations (CGS).