High-Altitude Cassini Radar Imaging of Titan

Details High-Altitude Cassini Radar Imaging of Titan High-Altitude Cassini Radar Imaging of Titan

Dec 2006

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2006agufm.p13a0151w&link_type=abstract

American Geophysical Union, Fall Meeting 2006, abstract #P13A-0151

Astronomy and Astrophysics

Astronomy

0694 Instruments And Techniques, 5464 Remote Sensing, 6281 Titan, 6949 Radar Astronomy

Scientific paper

The Cassini spacecraft is now about halfway through its primary Tour of the Saturn system. By the time of this meeting, the radar instrument will have collected seven synthetic aperture strips during close flyby's, with 13 more to come. These images have resolutions as fine as 300 m. We present here data acquired using another imaging mode, very high altitude synthetic aperture radar (SAR) imaging, which extends imaging radar coverage and increases coincidental coverage with other Cassini imaging instruments such as VIMS and ISS. We also discuss calibration of SAR images and other radar data from additional engineering observations. Here we examine the performance trade-offs, special processing issues, and science potential of the high- altitude image observations, and the latest results from the calibration data. The high-altitude data collections are distinct from the normal Titan radar images because the range is much larger (around 20,000 km vs 950 km to 5000 km for normal SAR passes). To increase the signal to noise ratio in these circumstances, the radar operates in the lowest bandwidth scatterometer mode while spacecraft pointing control is used to slowly pan the central beam across a small swath. These high altitude images incorporate 150-200 independent looks in order to let us discriminate features that may lie below the noise floor. So far, three high-altitude images have been acquired, during Titan flyby's T12, T13, and T15. In T12 imaging was attempted from 37000 km with an effective resolution around 5 km. In T13 the Huygens Probe landing site was imaged from 11000 km with effective resolution of 1 2 km. In T15 the Tsegehi area was imaged from 20000 km with effective resolution of 2 -3 km. Additional high altitude image segments are also planned during the T19 and T20 Titan flyby's. The calibration observations are conducted independently or coupled with a distant icy satellite observation. They consist of receive-only data in all four bandwidths provided by the radar (117, 468, 937, and 4675 kHz) and use many different back-end attenuation settings while observing cold space and a known reference such as Saturn. These data are used to characterize the system's performance.

Affiliated with

Also associated with

No associations

Rating

High-Altitude Cassini Radar Imaging of Titan does not yet have a rating. At this time, there are no reviews or comments for this scientific paper.

If you have personal experience with High-Altitude Cassini Radar Imaging of Titan, we encourage you to share that experience with our LandOfFree.com community. Your opinion is very important and High-Altitude Cassini Radar Imaging of Titan will most certainly appreciate the feedback.

Rate now

Comments { 0 }

Profile ID: LFWR-SCP-O-960926