SURVEILLANCE AND INTELLIGENCE
RADARSAT CONSTELLATION
MISSION
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The RADARSAT Constellation Mission (RCM), a constellation of three
C-Band Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) satellites, follows the success of
RADARSAT-1 and RADARSAT-2. Launches are planned for 2018.
Mission Objectives
MacDonald, Dettwiler and Associates Ltd. (MDA), the mission’s prime
contractor, started developing RCM’s payload and ground segment
in 2005. Major subcontractors are Bristol Aerospace, responsible for
the bus, and COM DEV, which is developing the payload’s central
electronics.
The mission objectives are to provide C-band SAR data continuity
to existing RADARSAT users and to enhance operational use of
C-band SAR data for maritime surveillance, disaster management and
environmental monitoring.
Maritime surveillance includes ship detection, ice monitoring, oil
pollution monitoring and marine wind measurement. RCM’s primary
requirements for maritime surveillance are over large areas up to
2,200 kilometers off Canada’s coasts. Disaster management includes
disaster mitigation, warning, response and recovery. RCM will support
disaster management by providing global access and rapid revisit with
a wide variety of imaging capabilities. Ecosystem monitoring includes
monitoring forestry, protected areas and wildlife habitat; agriculture;
wetlands; and coastal change.
RCM has a wide variety of imaging modes, ranging from
wide-area surveillance with a 500-kilometer swath to spotlight
mode with 1- x 3-meter resolution.
RCM Modes
To meet its mission objectives, RCM is required to support a wide
variety of imaging modes. These modes range from wide-area
surveillance with 500-kilometer imaging swaths to spotlight modes
with resolution of 1 meter in azimuth and 3 meters in range, as well as
a large number of modes between these extremes.
Furthermore, RCM will have a full set of multipolarization capabilities.
Like RADARSAT-2, RCM will support single, dual and quad-polarization
capabilities. In addition, RCM will provide a new multipolarization
capability called Compact Polarization.
RCM Imaging Capacity
The Canadian Government has requirements for daily imaging
coverage of large areas off Canada’s coasts. With three satellites with
wide-swath imaging, it will be possible to collect images covering all of
these maritime areas of interest daily. There are additional government
requirements for covering Canada’s land mass on a weekly basis. Only
a constellation can meet all these coverage requirements.
The imaging capacity of individual satellites in the constellation has
been sized to exceed all the Canadian government imaging needs by a
factor of two. Thus, the constellation has the ability to frequently image
large areas anywhere on the globe.
Innovative Capabilities
RCM’s mission configuration of three spacecraft and unique imaging
modes will allow the constellation to address future requirements with
greater flexibility.
Satellite
Velocity
Vector
Sub-satellite
Ground Track
(Nadir)
19º
185
km
175
35º
km
500
km
175
km
53º
100
km
Low Resolution
100m Mode
Medium Resolution
50m Mode
Low Noise/
Ship Detection Mode
Medium Resolution
30m Mode
Medium Resolution
16m Mode
High Resolution
5m Mode
Quad-Pol Mode
Very High Resolution
3m Mode
Spotlight Mode
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Application-Specific Imaging
Modes
RCM is required to support a
wide variety of applications. In
cases where a particular image is
acquired for one purpose, such
as ship detection, it makes sense
to design imaging modes that
are optimized for that purpose.
In other cases, images may be
required for multiple applications,
such as ship detection and ice
monitoring. In those cases,
general-purpose imaging modes
suitable for multiple applications
are needed. Thus, the RCM
design includes applicationspecific and general-purpose
and rapid image delivery (10 minutes from downlink to delivery). To
meet the 5-hour commanding timeline requires northern ground
stations that see the satellites on every orbit. Real-time downlink requires
ground station masks covering areas of interest. Finally, 10 minutes from
downlink to product delivery requires near-real-time SAR processing.
Compact Polarization
RADARSAT-2 can transmit and receive any combination of horizontal
or vertical linear polarizations. RCM will have an additional capability
to transmit circular polarization. Using this, in Compact Polarimetric
mode, the system will transmit circular polarization and receive dual
linear H and V polarization. This mode is designed to provide many
of the advantages of quad-pol, without the disadvantage inherent
in quad-pol, which is reduced swath width. RCM will be the first
SAR satellite system in the world to implement this type of Compact
Polarimetric mode.
RADARSAT-2 Data and Products © MacDonald, Dettwiler and Associates Ltd. 2009 – All Rights Reserved. RADARSAT is an official mark of the Canadian
Space Agency.
RADARSAT-2 ScanSar Wide image of Antarctica was acquired by the satellite on
September 7, 2009.
Expanding Capabilities
RCM is part of the trend in satellite remote sensing toward smaller
satellites that are interoperable, powerful, robust and flexible. An increased
number of satellites will bring increased revisit and support a broad
number of new applications. Most importantly, the program represents
a significant new capability for maritime domain awareness, arctic
surveillance, multipolarization imaging and broad-area change detection.
imaging modes. Application-specific imaging modes include modes
optimized for ship detection, ice monitoring and land applications.
Coherent Change Detection
Change detection can be achieved by performing a technique called
interferometry between images acquired over the same areas at
different times. Applications include subsidence detection, glacier
motion studies, evaluation of faults before and after earthquakes, and
detection of change related to construction or vehicle movement.
RCM is designed to support coherent change detection (CCD), which
offers the possibility to detect extremely small changes between image
takes. For CCD to work well, images must be acquired with as near to
identical imaging geometry as possible. For this, the mission requires
the satellites to be flown in tightly controlled orbital tubes (tube radius
of 100 meters) with a tightly controlled satellite altitude. Using CCD for
subsidence measurements, ground movements on millimeter scales
will be detectable.
Fast Tasking and Rapid Delivery of Images
Several RCM applications are time-critical. Thus, special attention is given
to the delivery timelines for the imagery and subsequent information
products. RCM has been designed to support rapid tasking of the
satellites (5 hours from order to command uplink), real-time downlinks
RADARSAT-2 Data and Products © MacDonald, Dettwiler and Associates Ltd. 2009 – All Rights Reserved. RADARSAT is an official mark of the Canadian
Space Agency.
RADARSAT-2 Fine quad pol image of the Antarctica was acquired by the satellite on
September 16, 2009.
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RADARSAT-2
RADARSAT Constellation
H
H
V
V
ar
ul
rc
Ci
RADARSAT-2 is a fully polarimetric system, providing all combinations of H and V polarization on both transmit and receive. Like
RADARSAT-2, RCM is a fully polarimetric system. RCM will also support compact polarization by transmitting circular polarization
and receiving dual linear polarization.
For more information, please contact us today:
MacDonald, Dettwiler and Associates Ltd.
13800 Commerce Parkway, Richmond, BC, Canada V6V 2J3
[email protected] | telephone 604-278-3411
RADARSAT-2 Data and Products © MacDonald, Dettwiler and Associates Ltd 2014 –
All Rights Reserved. RADARSAT is an official mark of the Canadian Space Agency.
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