Super-Low-Mass Spaceborne SAR Array Concepts

For Earth remote sensing applications, a synthetic aperture radar (SAR) typically employs an antenna with a fairly long along-track aperture in order to achieve the desired performance. To maintain an acceptable electrical flatness along this long aperture, very massive antenna support structures, weighing several hundred kilograms or more, have been used to date. To achieve good launch volume efficiency and to reduce payload weight, three super-low-mass array concepts are proposed and described here. With these new concepts, the mass of future Earth remote sensing SAR antennas is expected to be less than 100 kg.