Bistatic variants of space-based radar

This paper addresses nonmonostatic approaches for Space-based Radar (SBR) which can provide greater flexibility in system deployment, surveillance performance and operations, as well as potential benefits in deployment costs. The paper has two focused themes. The first theme addresses the potential benefits, new complexities and possible disadvantages of these bistatic variants with the goal of putting into a proper perspective the merits and limitations of these variants for SBR. The second theme addresses a specific system design and its projected performance. The overall goal of this paper is to aid the SBR technical community in its search for enhancements in wide area surveillance, to address the SBR technical needs and required developments, and, to provide a potential simplification in otherwise complex and high cost monostatic system deployments.