COSMO SG, SAR Instrument Design

"COSMO - SkyMed di Seconda Generazione" (COSMO SG) is a programme funded by the Italian Ministry of Research and by the Italian Ministry of Defence (I-MoD), and conducted by the Italian Space Agency (ASI) with I-MoD at the aim of pursuing a twofold goal: assuring SAR data continuity to the users of "COSMO - SkyMed" (CSK) and enhancing the capability of that system in terms of functionalities and performance. In accordance with the mentioned objectives, COSMO SG will enable astonishing Earth observation capabilities, satisfying emerging needs of both civilian and military users. Within the frame of this programme, to comply to the applicable user's requirements, Thales Alenia Space Italia S.p.A is charged of developing an innovative multi-mode X-band Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR), to confirm the image quality performance of CSK, to improve the resolution achievable by the system and to provide the novel capability of supporting acquisitions based on simultaneous dual polarisation on receive. This paper provides a description of the SAR instrument design, gives an outline of the key parameters of the instrument and describes the main enabling technologies developed in order to implement this design.