Remote sensing satellite formation for bistatic synthetic aperture radar observation

In recent years the Italian Space Agency has been proceeding to the definition and launch of small missions. In this ambit, the BISSAT mission was proposed and selected along with five other missions for a competitive Phase A study. BISSAT mission concept consists in flying a passive SAR on board a small satellite, which observes the area illuminated by an active SAR, operating on an already existing large platform. Several scientific applications of bistatic measurements can be envisaged: improvement of image classification and pattern recognition, derivation of medium-resolution digital elevation models, velocity measurements, measurements of sea-wave spectra. BISSAT payload is developed on the basis of the X-band SAR of the COSMO/SkyMed mission, while BISSAT bus is based on an upgrade of MITA. Orbit design has been performed, leading to the same orbit parameters apart from the ascending node right ascension (5.24 degree(s) shift) and the time of the passage on the ascending node (1.17s shift). A minimum distance at the passage of the orbit crossing point of about 42 km (5.7s) is computed. To maintain adequate swath overlap along the orbit, attitude maneuver or antenna electronic steering must be envisaged and traded-off taking into account radar performance and cost of hardware upgrade.