Santa Barbara, California – Umbra, a space technology company based in Santa Barbara, California, announced the release of images from its tandem pair of Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) satellites. Umbra plans to make bistatic SAR data available to customers in the second half of 2024.
Bistatic SAR is a radar configuration where the transmitter and receiver are located on separate platforms. In traditional monostatic SAR systems, the same platform acts as both transmitter and receiver. However, in bistatic SAR, these functions are split between different entities.
In bistatic SAR, one platform, known as a transmitter, sends a radar signal toward a target area. The other platform, called the receiver, captures the signal reflected from the target. Separating the transmitter and receiver offers certain advantages in certain applications.
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The monumental launch of Umbra's first tandem satellite pair, Umbra-07 and Umbra-08, aboard the SpaceX Transporter-9 mission on November 9, 2023, marked a major advance in SAR imaging. With eight satellites currently in orbit, Umbra plans to deploy the remaining satellites in strategically designed pairs in his licensed constellation of 32 satellites.
Operating satellites in cluster formations facilitates multistatic acquisition and other integrated operations, providing a unique phenomenology and inherent resilience. This approach opens the door to a variety of applications, including the implementation of information surveillance and recognition (ISR) capabilities, elevation modeling, image resiliency, and moving target indication techniques.
Development of the technology needed to automate Umbra's formation flight and multistatic data processing was dramatically accelerated last year by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), which selected Umbra as a partner for its Distributed Radar Imaging Technology Program. did.
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Umbra's SAR satellites have the unique ability to capture images day and night and are weather-resistant, making them suitable for monitoring change. Umbra's SAR satellites deliver SAR data in large volumes and area density, making it available for use in the United States. Governments, their allies and commercial partners can gain all-weather actionable insights.