Microwave Technology Activities for future SAR Candidate Earth Explorer Core Missions

Three candidate Earth Explorer Core Missions have been selected for Phase A after a User Consultation Meeting which took place in January 2009: BIOMASS, CoReH2O and PREMIER. A further down-selection shall take place in 2011/12, with a projected launch in the 2016/17 timeframe. Among the three candidates, two SAR missions are in the race: BIOMASS will carry a P-band polarimetric SAR for global observation of above-ground biomass and associated geophysical parameters as a primary objective; CoReH2O will provide dual-frequency (X/Ku-band) SAR observations of snow cover, glaciers and sea-ice for retrieving the snow cover extent, snow-water equivalent as well as other important cryospheric parameters. In complement to the Phase A studies, technology risk-retirement activities started, and their latest status and results are reported in this paper.