IEEE Aerospace and Electronic Systems Magazine - July 2020 - 47

Wang et al.
The Hughes Company launched the broadband satellite "SPACE-WAY" in 2007 [25]. It applies large-scale
Ka-band phased array antennas. With a total number of
1500 elements and a 2 m aperture, it has a unique ability
to support high-speed data networks.
In August 2010, the United States launched the
advanced extremely high frequency (AEHF-1) satellite
[26]. The satellite had 271 antenna elements with two transmitting phased arrays operating in the Ka-band. AEHF-2
and AEHF-3 were launched in May 2012 and in September
2013, respectively. AEHF-4, AEHF-5, and AEHF-6 were
expected to be launched in the years 2017, 2018, and 2019,
respectively, in order to develop the satellite communication system with the abilities of global strong antijamming.

RUSSIA
On September 28, 1983, the former Soviet Union
launched the Earth-ocean observing satellite COSMOS1500, which was used for civilian and military purposes.
It operated at a 650-km high polar orbit [27] and used Xband waveguide slotted array antennas. This satellite was
the first one in a series of 24 COSMOS satellites, all of
which were needed to cover the globe. At 11:55 AM (US
Eastern Standard time) on February 10, 2009, the Iridium
33 satellite of the United States and the COSMOS-2251
satellite of Russia collided over Siberia, which was the
first satellite collision accident in the history.
Diamond Series 1 (ALMAZ-1) [28] was launched in
March 1991 by the "proton" rocket. It was considered to be
an important Earth-observing SAR satellite following the
SEASAT-1, SIR-A/B, and COSMOS-1870 satellites. An Sband centralized feeding waveguide slotted array antenna
with HH-polarization was carried on the satellite. In October 1992, this satellite crashed into the Pacific Ocean due to
a lack of fuel after 17 months of service. After that, Russia
launched ALMAZ-1B satellite in 1998 to observe Earth
and ocean resources with the C-band and S-band waveguide
slotted array antennas, which operated for two years [29].
Not only do Diamond Series satellites mean that radar satellites made in Russia will return to orbit, but it also mean that
Russia has gained a foothold in the radar satellite market.
The GLONASS constellation, established in 1993, was
composed of 24 satellites, which achieved global coverage
in 2011. These satellites were equipped with L-band microstrip active phased array antennas. The constellation had
become the second largest global satellite navigation system.

concentrated feeding waveguide slotted active phased
array radar, which used VV-polarized antennas to obtain
the spatial resolution of 30 m and high quality images of
100 km observation bandwidth. This was also the first
time that ESA used large-area imaging observations of the
earth by spaceborne SAR technology. In 1996, ERS-1
stopped working. In April 1995, ESA launched the ERS-2
satellite, which had a performance similar to ERS-1. Currently, ERS-2 is still in its orbit and has accumulated 18
years of Earth observation data.
ENVISAT is an advanced, sun-synchronous, earthenvironmental monitoring satellite launched by an
ARIANE-5 rocket on March 1, 2002 [31]. The satellite
used a C-band microstrip active phased array radar with a
total number of 3840 antenna elements and 320 T/R components. The radar signal bandwidth was 16 MHz.
The COSMO-SKYMED satellite was the second satellite of the high-resolution radar satellite constellation
jointly developed by the Italian Space Agency and the Italian Ministry of Defense [32]. The launch mission of the satellite constellation had been completed before the end of
2008. On June 8, 2007, the American DELTA-2 Rocket
successfully lifted off from Vandenberg Air Force Base in
California. The satellite was built by Telles-Alenia Aerospace Corporation, and it was the first satellite jointly completed by the Italian Ministry of Defense and the Italian
Space Agency. The program consisted four satellites composed of X-band dual-polarized deployable active phased
array radar. The signal bandwidth of the radar was 300
MHz and the maximum resolution was 0.7 m. The cost of
the whole system was approximately 1 billion Euros.
The German radar satellite TERRASAR-X [33] was
launched into space aboard a DNEPR-1 rocket on June
15, 2007. Due to a failed launch of the rocket in the summer of 2006, the planned launch of the TERRASAR-X on
October 31, 2006 was delayed for 8 months. The TERRASAR-X was equipped with full-polarization active phased
array antennas, which could collect high-quality X-band
radar data and could reach a resolution of 1 m. The operation of the satellite did not depend on meteorological conditions or cloud cover.
From 2001 to 2005, ESA developed and verified the
"Galileo Plan" [34] of satellites, which had L-band active
phased array antennas. Two satellites of the first batch
were launched successfully on October 21, 2011 at the
Kourou spaceport in French Guiana. The European Union
hoped that the launch of all 30 satellites would have been
completed by 2019 in order to reshuffle the global satellite
navigation market.

EUROPEAN SPACE AGENCY
In July 1991, the European Space Agency launched the
Earth Resources Satellite (ERS-1) via an ARIANE-4
rocket [30]. The satellite adopted the MK-1 platform used
by the French SPOT-1/2 satellite and featured a C-band
JULY 2020

CANADA
The Canadian Space Agency (CSA) began developing the
SAR satellite RADARSAT-1 [35] in 1989. Its successful

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