Moon-Based SAR for Macro-Scale Solid Earth Observation: System Parameters Analysis and Design

The Moon-based Synthetic Aperture Radar (Moon-based SAR) has a great potential to offer ultra-wide imaging swath with a high revisit cycle for Macro-scale Solid Earth Observation (EO). Theoretically, we propose a set of system parameters of Moon-based SAR concerning the antenna size and Pulse Repetition Frequency (PRF). In contrast to traditional spaceborne SAR missions, Moon-based SAR system works relying on the relative motion between the earth target and the system. Therefore, the actual relative motion of the Moon-Earth system is considered during the parameters simulation. In addition, the performance of Moon-Based SAR imaging is taken into account. Our results show that Moon-Based SAR would be capable of monitoring thousands of kilometers scale phenomena. It may form an imaging swath of 5000 km by using multi-beam SAR techniques. The results would support the system design of Moon-based SAR for global-scale EO.