SSTL Sweeting reports on NovaSAR

Satnews Publishers: Daily Satellite News - SSTL Chairman Sir Martin Sweeting Takes A Gander @ 2015

Surrey Satellite Technology Ltd. (SSTL) Chairman Sir Martin Sweeting "We have our first Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) satellite, NovaSAR, taking shape in our clean rooms.  NovaSAR is a medium-resolution, low-cost, radar mission using an SSTL platform  with an S-Band imaging payload developed by Airbus Defence and Space, and an AIS payload supplied by ComDev. It’s an innovative new spacecraft, and stands at 3m tall.  In preparation for vibration qualification testing, the  accelerometers have just been fitted, and also flight solar array panels with mass dummies representing each of the critical items of avionics and payloads.  Manufacturing of NovaSAR will continue through 2015, in readiness for launch in 2016. We’re not standing still with our radar capabilities though, and we’re already developing our next generation SAR, with potential X-Band options.

NovaSAR mission page from SSTL
 NovaSAR-S is a small Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) mission designed for low-cost programmes and optimised for shared launch opportunities.  The system baselines SSTL-300 avionics flying on NigeriaSat-2, with an imaging payload developed by the space borne SAR team at Astrium UK,  and S-band solid state power amplifier technology. 

NovaSAR-S is designed to operate independently, or in a constellation that will maximise imaging opportunities and data.  A constellation of three NovaSAR-S satellites can image any point on the globe every day, regardless of daylight or weather conditions. 

The first NovaSAR-S platform is currently in manufacture at SSTL, part-funded by the UK government.

NovaSAR-S: A Low Cost Approach to SAR Applications - PID2854845_NovaSAR_0052.pdf

Bird, R.; Whittaker, P.; Stern, B.; Angli, N.; Cohen, M.; Guida, R., "NovaSAR-S: A low cost approach to SAR applications," Synthetic Aperture Radar (APSAR), 2013 Asia-Pacific Conference on , vol., no., pp.84,87, 23-27 Sept. 2013
Abstract: 

NovaSAR-S is SSTL's revolutionary small Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) satellite designed for low cost missions. The instrument specification and mission characteristics of the NovaSAR satellite have been designed to provide benefit to a range of applications - the key ones being maritime surveillance (including ship and oil slick detection), forestry, disaster monitoring (particularly flooding) and agriculture. The paper will present an assessment of the ability of NovaSAR to address these key applications and provide examples of products that could be derived from NovaSAR imagery to support these applications.

URL: http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/stamp/stamp.jsp?tp=&arnumber=6705016&isnumber=6704984