Latest Results of the TerraSAR-X Central Electronics

Inhalt:
A brief overview of the functions and the design of the TerraSAR-X Central Electronic (CE) is presented. The CE is the core control unit of the radar instrument, which consists of the RF Electronics (RFE) and the Data and Control Electronics (DCE). These units were designed, constructed, and tested during the last years by EADS Defence Electronics and are currently integrated in the TerraSAR payload for launch in 2006. Important performance parameters of the CE were investigated. Most of the performance investigations were analyzed by means of a Data Evaluation Unit, with which chirp data were recorded after they were transmitted through the CE in a roundtrip mode. A brief outline of the underlying performance analysis algorithms is presented. The latest performance analysis results obtained from these recorded data were performed on the CE Flight Model main and redundant unit under various environmental conditions. Only a small set of performance results can be presented in this paper.