Instrument pre-development activities for L-band SAR

In preparation of potential future Earth observation Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) missions, the European Space Agency (ESA) is conducting instrument preparatory activities. This paper presents the status and results of the instrument pre-developments for an L-band receive-only SAR, which would fly in formation with an active SAR satellite acting as an illuminator. Such formations would enable e.g. single-pass SAR interferometry, tomography as well as observations under large bistatic angles. The paper focuses on the development of the Radar Central Electronics and the Antenna front-end, which were performed in preparation of the SAOCOM-CS mission [1].