IEEE Geoscience and Remote Sensing Magazine - March 2018 - 35

space agencies
SILVIA MARI, GIOVANNI VALENTINI, STEFANO SERVA, TIZIANA SCOPA,
MAURO CARDONE, LUCA FASANO, AND GIUSEPPE FRANCESCO DE LUCA

COSMO-SkyMed Second Generation
System Access Portfolio

T

he Constellation of Small Satellites for the Mediterranean Basin Observation (COSMO)-SkyMed
Second Generation (CSG) ground segment (GS) is
based on an interoperable and multimission design
that provides CSG functionalities to external partners
and access through the CSG to services belonging to
other Earth observation (EO) partners. Moreover, the
CSG GS design supports such cooperation by expansion through replication of user GSs (UGSs) in different
ways. In this manner, the CSG GS is able to manage
EO foreign missions by providing centralized and multimission access in an integrated environment, thus offering valuable technological solutions to the defense
and civilian communities. This article provides an indepth description of the CSG system access portfolio,
focusing on the architectural details of the GS that
allow the provisioning and exploitation of the CSG's
interoperability, expandability, and multisensor/multimission (IEM) features.

FROM THE FIRST GENERATION TO THE SECOND
CSG [1] is the Italian end-to-end satellite system for EO
that is the follow-up mission to the currently operating
COSMO-SkyMed First Generation (CSK) mission. The latter system is a constellation of four satellites in low-Earth
orbit that deploys X-band synthetic aperture radar (SAR).
In the following discussion, COSMO-SkyMed will be used
to indicate the overall infrastructure that provides both
the CSK's and CSG's capabilities.
COSMO-SkyMed is intended for both civilian and
defense use [2], and its primary objective is to quickly
fulfill heterogeneous user needs in the domains of land
monitoring, emergency response, territorial strategic
surveillance for intelligence and homeland security, specific defense planning, topography, and scientific and
commercial applications. A full-featured GS provides all
of the functions, infrastructures, and capabilities necessary for its operation in accordance with the specific
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/MGRS.2017.2779461
Date of publication: 30 March 2018

march 2018

ieee Geoscience and remote sensing magazine	

needs and constraints of its dual users (that is, capable
of satisfying both civilian and military needs). All four
CSK satellites were successfully launched between 2007
and 2010, and the full constellation has been operational since mid-2011.
The CSG system was conceived to ensure the operational continuity of the current CSK constellation as well
as to achieve a generational step forward in functionality
and performance. The CSG will be composed of two additional X-band SAR satellites. It will address challenging
new objectives, such as improvements in product resolution, an increased number of images, reduced operational
costs, greater agility, enhanced management and satisfaction of heterogeneous and complementary dual-use requirements through the introduction of new user services,
and improved planning and harmonization functionalities. Furthermore, to enlarge the applicational range of
SAR imagery, the CSG will provide new sensing modes
currently not offered by the CSK system:
◗ The spotlight and scanSAR modes will be available
in dual polarization (the CSK provides only single
polarization).
◗ The stripmap mode, which in the CSK is single polarization, will guarantee both dual and quad polarization (with a reduced swath in the range direction).
◗ The pingpong mode will acquire both dual and quad
polarization (the CSK provides only a dual-polarization mode).
In addition to these standard acquisition modes, the
CSG will enable nonstandard modes, based on either
SAR agility (acquiring two scenes at the same time) or
platform agility (allowing nonzero Doppler acquisition
performance with a squinted attitude).
Several other novelties have been introduced in SAR
products; they enhance the coherence of interferometric couples, provide the capacity to generate digital elevation models from several couples of interferometric
acquisitions, offer coregistration improvement, and
make available selectable multilook or common-band
filtering. With the CSK's already implemented IEM
capabilities [3] further enhanced in the framework of
0274-6638/18©2018IEEE

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Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of IEEE Geoscience and Remote Sensing Magazine - March 2018

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