TH-2 satellite engineering design and implementation

doi:10.11947/j.AGCS.2020.20200175

Abstract

Abstract: The TH-2 satellite system is China's first microwave surveying satellite system based on interferometric synthetic aperture radar technology, and is also China's first short-range formation satellite system. It is the second microwave interferometric surveying satellite system after the German's TanDEM-X system in the world. A method to solve the problem of absolute ambiguity in the interference phase by designing dual-frequency imaging is proposed for the first time in the world, which completely got rid of the dependence on ground control data. The system works in the X band, with the resolution of 3 m and a solar synchronous orbit of 500 km. It is composed of two equal satellites. It adopts a technical system of satellite formation in different orbits and a bistatic radar transceiver mode. It can measure the global digital surface models and acquire radar orthophotos in a short time. In this paper, through the selection of the interference baseline system, satellite formation configuration and radar transceiver mode, the technical system of TH-2 satellite is proposed. The engineering design is carried out from three aspects:system mission, main performance and composition. The implementation of the project is expounded from the three stages of the overall demonstration, the key technical research and verification, and project development. Finally, the on-orbit test and verification of the satellite system is introduced. Test results show that all indicators have reached the requirements of engineering design, products' precision is equivalent to TanDEM -X system and can meet the 1:50 000 scale mapping accuracy. These verify the TH-2 satellite' engineering design ideas correct and the method of project implementation reasonable and feasible.

Key words: satellite engineering, InSAR, satellite formation, bistatic, TH-2, in-orbit test

CLC Number:

P236

LOU Liangsheng, LIU Zhiming, ZHANG Hao, QIAN Fangming, HUANG Yan. TH-2 satellite engineering design and implementation[J]. Acta Geodaetica et Cartographica Sinica, 2020, 49(10): 1252-1264.

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