HRWS: The upcoming German X-Band Spaceborne SAR Mission

This paper presents the High-Resolution Wide-Swath (HRWS) mission as the next German civilian spaceborne Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) system for earth observation in X-Band. Following the successful path of the TerraSAR-X and TanDEM-X missions, HRWS is designed to guarantee the X-band data and service continuity for institutional, scientific and commercial users well beyond the year 2030. HRWS is a very innovative multistatic SAR mission exploiting the formation flight of one active main satellite and three smaller passive companion satellites. With HRWS the novel MirrorSAR concept will be implemented in space for the first time. The HRWS mission has been approved for realization in December 2020 and, as for the current planning, the launch is expected in the time frame of 2026/2027. This paper presents an overview of the outstanding capabilities and new technologies of HRWS, including F-SCAN, digital beamforming, hybrid agility, and single-pass dual-baseline interferometry, as well as the various fields of applications

Proceedings of the 4th bwHPC Symposium

The bwHPC Symposium 2017 took place on October 4th, 2017, Alte Aula, Tübingen. It focused on the presentation of scientific computing projects as well as on the progress and the success stories of the bwHPC realization concept. The event offered a unique opportunity to engage in an active dialogue between scientific users, operators of bwHPC sites, and the bwHPC support team

TanDEM-X: Mission Overview and Status

TanDEM-X (TerraSAR-X add-on for Digital Elevation Measurement) opens a new era in space borne radar remote sensing. A single-pass SAR-interferometer with adjustable baselines in across- and in along-track directions is formed by adding a second (TDX), almost identical spacecraft, to TerraSAR-X (TSX) and flying the two satellites in a closely controlled formation. With typical across-track baselines of 200-400m DEMs with 2m relative height accuracy at a 12 m posting will be generated. The HELIX concept provides a save solution for the close formation flight with vertical separation of the two satellites over the poles and adjustable horizontal baselines at the ascending/descending node crossings