A new simple scatterometer concept combines the advantages of both the fixed, multiple beam, sidelooking radar such as AMI-Wind (ERS-1/2) and NSCAT (ADEOS), and the conically scanning pencil-beam radar such as SeaWinds. A wide, fanbeam antenna is rotated around a vertical axis with a slow rotation rate. For a satellite at an altitude of 725 km, the antenna footprint sweeps a circular donut of 1500 km diameter. Such a slow conical scan combined with the motion of the satellite at 7 km/s ground speed results in highly overlapping successive sweeps such that an image pixel is revisited up to 10 11 times during an overpass. The pixels in the radial direction are resolved by range-gating the radar echo. Depending on the across-track position of the imaged pixel, the measurement acquisitions during an overpass consist of a set of at different combinations of the azimuth and incident angles. A preliminary optimization of the system resulted in a C-band radar concept with a 15 km multiple-look spatial resolution and global coverage in two days. A sketch of the developed concept, preliminary system design, and predicted performance are described. , he was involved in the areas of electromagnetic scattering computation (radar scattering cross section modeling) and radar signal processing related to defense applications. Since 1993, his areas of interest have been in satelliteborne remote sensing, involving development of the retrieval algorithms for rain rate and vertical profile of clouds, and design of radar systems for a dual frequency rain radar and a millimeterwave cloud profiling radar. In his role as Senior Scientist and Program Manager with MPB, he participated various related projects funded by European Space Agency, Noordwijk, The Netherlands, and the Canadian Space Agency, St. Hubert, PQ, Canada, the most recent of which is a development of 94 GHz local-oscillator/up-converter MMIC's for cloud radar application. Recently, he has expanded his research and development activity into satellite communication for development of high power transmitters for Optical InterSatellite Link.

No abstract

This paper briefly describes the results obtained in the course of the trade-off analysis and architectural design activities of the Italian X-band Synthetic Aperture Radar. This has been carried out at Alenia Aerospazio -Space Division in the frame of internal research activities and of the Italian Space Agency (ASI) "The SkyMedCOSMO System" contract.

This paper presents the results of the end-to-end performance verification campaign performed in the frame of the COSMO-SkyMed system commissioning. After a brief introduction that provides an overview of the context in which the activity has been developed, the paper describes the reference parameters that have been individuated in order to evaluate the COSMO-SkyMed system performances and shows as these parameters have been used in the frame of the verification of system compliance with reference to the applicable requirements. The tests performed to measure these relevant parameters together with a description of the related scenarios and general conditions and constraints are presented. Finally the paper reports the achieved results and associated conclusions.