A Geosynchronous SAR Constellation for Mid-Latitude Continuous Observation

Inhalt:
The geosynchronous (GEO) SAR has become a focus of research in next generation spaceborne SAR development. In this paper, a novel GEO SAR constellation is designed, where the satellite orbit plane overlaps with the equatorial plane. It consists of several satellites evenly distributed in longitude. Each satellite rotates at the same speed as the Earth but in the opposite direction from east to west. This constellation has better capability of continuously observing mid-latitude region and also has advantages in the contexts of synthetic aperture time shortening and azimuth variance property reduction.