The SESAR-LITE (Space Exploration Synthetic Aperture Radar - Lunar Investigations Targeted Experiment) instrument is a compact P-band (70 cm wavelength) polarimetric synthetic aperture radar under development at the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC) to measure the surface and upper subsurface of the Moon at full polarimetry and at meter-scale resolution. The radar will use a compact deployable antenna, distributed RF electronics, and multi-channel digital processing system to enable a set of focused mission goals for small payload opportunities. The instrument development leverages proven technology advancements recently developed and demonstrated at NASA GSFC for SESAR (Space Exploration Synthetic Aperture Radar), a flagship version of the instrument that was tailored for larger orbital missions. The development of SESAR-LITE addresses accommodation flexibility on multiple launch vehicle families that require small packages while providing unprecedented surface and subsurface imaging of the Moon as required by NASA’s Artemis program. The goal of this effort is to mature the technology readiness level and to demonstrate the unique features and capabilities of this radar in preparation for upcoming mission opportunities.

The Space Exploration Synthetic Aperture Radar (SESAR) is a P-band radar instrument for planetary applications being developed at the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC). This radar will enable unprecedented surface and near-subsurface measurements of planetary bodies including the Moon, Mars, and asteroids. The radar will measure full polarimetry at meter-scale resolution while featuring a low power, lightweight, beamforming design, specifically developed to meet stringent requirements of planetary instruments. The ongoing prototype development is maturing the SESAR technology for upcoming planetary mission opportunities.

The Space Exploration Synthetic Aperture Radar (SESAR) is a new P-band radar instrument development for planetary applications that will enable unprecedented surface and near-subsurface measurements of planetary bodies including the Moon, Mars, and asteroids. The radar will measure full polarimetry at meter scale resolution, and achieve beam agility through programmable digital beamforming architecture. The radar features a low power, lightweight, modular design, specifically developed to meet stringent launch and operation requirements of planetary instruments. A prototype SESAR system is currently being developed under NASA's MATISSE (Maturation of Instruments for Solar System Exploration) program.

The Space Exploration Synthetic Aperture Radar is a new radar instrument development for planetary applications that will enable unprecedented surface and near-subsurface measurements of planetary bodies including the Moon, Mars, and asteroids. The radar is based on an advanced multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) architecture that operates in the P-band (70 cm wavelength), measures full polarimetry at meter scale resolution, and achieves beam agility through programmable digital beamforming. The radar is based on a low power, lightweight, modular design approach specifically developed to meet stringent launch and operation requirements of planetary instruments. Prototype SESAR subsystems have been developed and tested, and a recent MATISSE (Maturation of Instruments for Solar System Exploration) proposal was awarded to build and test a functional radar panel.

SESAR (Space Exploration Synthetic Aperture Radar) is a next generation P-band beamforming radar instrument concept that will enable a new class of observations suitable to meet Decadal Survey science goals for planetary exploration. The radar operates at full polarimetry and fine (meter scale) resolution, and achieves beam agility through programmable transmit waveforms and digital beamforming on receive. The radar is based on a low power, lightweight design approach conceived to meet the stringent planetary instrument requirements. This instrument concept has the potential to provide unprecedented surface and near-subsurface measurements of planetary bodies including the Moon, Mars, and asteroids.

The Space Exploration Synthetic Aperture Radar (SESAR) is an advanced P-band beamforming radar instrument concept to enable a new class of observations suitable to meet Decadal Survey science goals for planetary exploration. The radar operates at full polarimetry and fine (meter scale) resolution, and achieves beam agility through programmable waveform generation and digital beamforming. The radar architecture employs a novel low power, lightweight design approach to meet stringent planetary instrument requirements. This instrument concept has the potential to provide unprecedented surface and near-subsurface measurements applicable to multiple Decadal Survey Science Goals.

The Mini-RF radar, launched on the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, imaged the lunar surface using hybrid-polarimetric, transmitting one circular polarization and receiving linear H and V polarizations. Earth-based radar operating at the same frequency has acquired data of the same terrains using circular-polarized transmit waves and sampling circular polarizations. For lunar targets where the viewing geometry is nearly the same, the polarimetry derived from Mini-RF and the earth-based data should be very similar. However, we have discovered that there is a considerable difference in circular polarization ratio (CPR) values between the two data sets. We investigate possible causes for this discrepancy, including cross-talk between channels, sampling, and the ellipticity of the Mini-RF transmit wave. We find that none of these can reproduce the observed CPR differences, though a nonlinear block adaptive quantization function used to compress the data will significantly distort some other polarimetry products. A comparison between earth-based data sets acquired using two different sampling modes (sampling received linear polarizations and sampling circular polarizations) suggests that the CPR differences may be partially due to sampling the data in a different receive polarimetry bases.

SHARAD is a frequency-modulated (15-25 MHz) radar sounder that probes the upper few kilometers of the Martian crust and polar layered deposits. At solar zenith angles less than about 100°, the ionosphere of Mars can induce phase distortion in surface and subsurface radar echoes that substantially degrades the signal-to-noise ratio and vertical resolution of the range-compressed data. We present a range-compression autofocus approach that estimates the phase distortion of SHARAD data along ground-track segments of about 100 km, using a power-law image-sharpness metric and an empirically derived scaling between the phase correction and radar frequency. This method is rapid, yields a greatly improved subsurface image, and provides a means to track regional and temporal changes in the Martian ionosphere.

Radar is a useful remote sensing tool for studying planetary geology because it is sensitive to the composition, structure, and roughness of the surface and can penetrate some materials to reveal buried terrain. The Arecibo Observatory radar system transmits a single sense of circular polarization, and both senses of circular polarization are received, which allows for the construction of the Stokes polarization vector. From the Stokes vector, daughter products such as the circular polarization ratio, the degree of linear polarization, and linear polarization angle are obtained. Recent polarimetric imaging using Arecibo has included Venus and the Moon. These observations can be compared to radar data for terrestrial surfaces to better understand surface physical properties and regional geologic evolution. For example, polarimetric radar studies of volcanic settings on Venus, the Moon, and Earth display some similarities, but also illustrate a variety of different emplacement and erosion mechanisms. Polarimetric radar data provide important information about surface properties beyond what can be obtained from single-polarization radar. Future observations using polarimetric synthetic aperture radar will provide information on roughness, composition, and stratigraphy that will support a broader interpretation of surface evolution.

There is a significant difference between people who know about software engineering and those skilled in producing high quality systems on time in ways that delight the customer. Too many academics focus on the latest tools, methods and technique while they ignore a number of the important lessons new engineers must master. While many assert that what differentiates a novice from a master is the number of patterns they can recognize and then leverage for their benefit, becoming a master is so much more. Earning the respect of the client and maintaining it through the entire project is as important as the required technical skills. Being able to continuously find the risks, technical and others, and having the skill to manage them as they change is equally crucial. Truly successful software engineers in today's turbulent world must demonstrate knowledge, skill and wisdom in business relationships to the same degree they are able to solve technical problems. This presentation will survey what we have learned about bringing predictability and quality to the development of high value systems. It will then focus on the importance of addressing both knowledge and skill aspects of software engineering in the context of a professional's career. Finally, an approach for delivering such an educational experience will be described.

We describe new 70-cm wavelength radar images of the lunar near-side and limb regions obtained via a synthetic-aperture-radar patch-focusing reduction technique. The data are obtained by transmitting a circularly polarized pulsed waveform from the Arecibo telescope in Puerto Rico and receiving the echo in both senses of circular polarization with the Robert C. Byrd Green Bank Telescope in West Virginia. The resultant images in both polarizations have a spatial resolution as fine as 320 m 450 m near the lunar limb. The patch-focusing technique is a computationally efficient method for compensating for range migration and Doppler (azimuth) smearing over long coherence times, i.e., 983 s, which is needed to achieve the required Doppler resolution. Three to nine looks are averaged for speckle reduction and to improve the signal-to-noise ratio. At this long wavelength, the radar signal penetrates up to several tens of meters into the dry lunar surface materials, thus revealing details of the bulk loss properties and decimeter-scale rock abundance not evident in multispectral and other remote-sensing data. Application of the new radar images to the analysis of basalt flow complexes in Mare Serenitatis shows that the long-wavelength radar data are sensitive to differences in both flow age and composition, and may be particularly useful for studies of smaller deposits that do not have robust crater statistics. The new 70-cm lunar radar data are archived at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration Planetary Data System.