Israel Aerospace Industries… TECSAR Turned Out (Satellite)

[SatNews] Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI) presented its TECSAR satellite model at the annual open house at the president’s residence, held in Jerusalem.

TECSAR can deliver all weather global Image Intelligence (IMINT) via satellite: The Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) Technology Demonstration LEO Satellite (TECSAR) delivers SAR high resolution images of any area of interest. A powerful ground station is deployed to task new missions via the uplink, and for downloading high quality images via a high rate downlink, followed by further image exploitation and interpretation. The SAR systems produce images that approach photographic quality and penetrate environmental barriers such as clouds, rain, smoke, fog and man-made camouflage. TECSAR is a new generation, high performance SAR observation satellite and will provide very high day and night resolution images in all weather conditions. With a very low weight of just 300kg, the satellite will achieve extremely high mechanical agility. Combining high maneuverability with electronic antenna beam steering, TECSAR offers high-resolution coverage of large areas in mosaic form. TECSAR’s unique ground coverage capability will provide customers with unprecedented usability and will overcome the limitations of other type SAR observation systems.

The new satellite can be used to collect a large number of high-resolution images per orbit or alternatively, many hundreds of medium resolution swaths. Using electronic beam scanning, TECSAR can also provide wide coverage at lower resolution. The ground segment of the TECSAR system includes an exploitation station that performs automatic data processing activities such as target detection, change detection and target cluster indication. TECSAR is designed for a tight operation cycle, requiring a very short time from tasking to dissemination of exploited data. TECSAR offers a very high quality cost-effective solution; with a low launch cost and capability for multiple ground station operations that will facilitate multi-user partnerships.