Image acquisition regardless of weather conditions, day and night
The synthetic aperture radar(SAR) generates images by emitting radio signals from a satellite and receiving signals reflected from an object. The synthetic aperture radar (SAR) has the advantage of acquiring images in all kinds of weather, day or night, regardless of weather conditions due to radio waves' characteristics. It can be used in various applications such as ice and snow, vegetation, ocean, and hydrological observations as well as topography identification and displacement detection by varying the frequency band (L, C, X, Ku band, etc.) and observation method (high resolution, standard, wide area).
The imaging radar is mounted and operated on Arirang 5. The resolution is 1m in high-resolution mode, 3m in standard mode, and 20m in wide-area mode. It will also be mounted on Arirang 6, which is currently under research and development. The imaging radar of Arirang 6 has four times' (0.5m class) higher performance than that of Arirang 5, enabling the world's highest level of precise earth observation.
Moreover, Compact advanced satellite 500-5(CAS 500-5) will be equipped with a C-band synthetic aperture radar(SAR) in the 5.4 GHz frequency band for the observation of water resources and water disasters. KARI is studying ways to reduce its form factor and weight to be loaded in the 500 kg standard body.