Simulation of near-nadir bistatic high resolution InSAR data in Ka-band for the SWOT mission

Surface Water and Ocean Topography (SWOT) is a future satellite mission which is being prepared jointly by NASA/JPL and the Centre National d'Etudes Spatiales (CNES), in cooperation with scientific communities in oceanography and hydrology. The principal instrument is KaRIn which is a Ka-band bistatic interferometric SAR system operating on two near nadir swaths on opposite sides of the satellite track. This article presents a raw data SAR image simulator and preliminary L1 and L2 processors which have been developed in the framework of the CNES phase A studies. The paper highlights the most interesting features of the simulation and the data processing compared to conventional space-borne SAR systems.