Garada SAR Formation Flying requirements, space system baseline and spacecraft structural design

• Main Authors: Steven R. Tsitas, George Constantinos
• Other Authors: The Pennsylvania State University CiteSeerX Archives
• Format: Text
• Language: English
• Subjects: Garada; ASRP; SAR; L-Band; soil moisture; bushfire; flood; forest; REDD; Australian; Antarctic; Territory; strategy; Broadband; Ground Station; Astrium; Snapdragon; Australian Antarctic Territory; Antarc*
• Online Access: http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.413.2761; http://www.gmat.unsw.edu.au/snap/publications/tsitas%26con2012.pdf

Summary: The mission baseline of the Australian Garada SAR Formation Flying mission is described, which is designed for operational soil moisture mapping of the Murray Darling Basin from space. An L-Band Synthetic Aperture Radar is described with an antenna size of 15.5m x 3.9m, packaged into a spacecraft bus design with a single fold in two symmetrical spacecraft halves. Space system requirements are specified and design decisions are shown to follow from requirements. The spacecraft structural design is presented along with the results of finite element analysis calculations verifying the structure.