Miniaturized P-band RADAR Transceiver
Project Description
There is a strong need to miniaturize radar hardware to enable affordable spaceborne Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) Carbon Cycle science remote sensing missions. To that end, we propose to develop and demonstrate a miniaturized P-band radar transceiver with size, mass and volume significantly lower than current airborne systems, and which provides a low cost option for future spaceborne SAR instruments.
The effort will prototype a miniaturized version of the transceiver used in NASA's Ecological Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) airborne instrument called ECOSAR which flew in February 2014 over the Costa Rican rain forests. The prototype will be used to study the architecture for a spaceborne SAR instrument as a precurser to a hybrid circuit module development effort. If small enough the printed circuit transceiver would offer a low cost alternative to the hybrid module for the spaceborne instrument.
More »Anticipated Benefits
This prototype could be used to reduce the size, weight, power footprint of ECOSAR.
The “path to space” concept for the Earth Science focus (Ecological System remote sensing) in a NASA study calls for a 250 channel Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) with a 30 MHz bandwidth. With such a large number of channels, an affordable, small, reliable, low power and lightweight transceiver will be required. The technical solution for the transceiver subsystem for this instrument, proposed in the study, to reduce weight, and power, was a highly integrated MMIC/ASIC hybrid module. These modules have a high cost and risk and will necessitate a significant development effort.
To mitigate the risk and to mature the final subsystem architecture a low cost PCB design with the same performance and functionality will be accomplished under this project. If successful this PCB not only will help reduce risk of the MMIC/ASIC hybrid module but it actually will be a low cost alternative to the module. It could potentially be used for the final space flight instrument.
The basic design of the PCB developed under this effort will be based on the study architecture which supports both future Earth and Planetary Science missions.
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Primary U.S. Work Locations and Key Partners
| Organizations Performing Work | Role | Type | Location |
|---|---|---|---|
Goddard Space Flight Center
(GSFC)
|
Lead Organization | NASA Center | Greenbelt, Maryland |
| University of Oklahoma-Norman Campus | Supporting Organization | Academia | Norman, Oklahoma |
Primary U.S. Work Locations
-
Maryland
-
Oklahoma
