Hisea-1 SAR Satellite
Spacety
World's first commercial C-band smallsat SAR satellite with a phased-array antenna, a 185 kg flat-panel foldable design achieving 1 m resolution.
Technical specifications
- Mass
- 185 kg
- Stowed thickness
- 7.5 cm (flat-panel foldable design)
- SAR band
- C-band
- Antenna
- Active phased-array antenna
- Spotlight mode resolution
- 1 m
- Strip mode resolution
- 3 m
- Scanning mode resolution
- 20 m
- Development time
- ~1 year
- Launch vehicle
- Long March 8 (LZ-8), Wenchang
- Satellite family
- TY-MINISAR (planned 56-satellite constellation)
About
Hisea-1, launched 22 December 2020 on the inaugural Long March 8 (LZ-8) flight from Wenchang, China, is Spacety’s first satellite for a commercial SAR constellation and the world’s first commercial miniaturized C-band Synthetic Aperture Radar satellite with a phased-array antenna. It is a flat-panel, foldable satellite weighing 185 kg with a stowed thickness of 7.5 cm, yet achieves 1 m resolution in Spotlight mode using its active phased-array antenna, comparable to imagery from much heavier SAR satellites such as Radarsat-2 or Sentinel-1 (over 12x heavier). Hisea-1 was developed, including its phased-array SAR payload, in about one year — roughly 5x faster than traditional SAR satellite development. It is the first satellite of Spacety’s TY-MINISAR series of light, small SAR satellites, planned to grow into a constellation of 56 satellites. Hisea-1 has been used operationally, including providing rapid SAR imagery of the Mamuju, Sulawesi (Indonesia) earthquake (magnitude 6.2) for United Nations disaster-relief efforts.
Documentation
No public datasheet yet — request the datasheet / ICD from the supplier.
