As small satellites are finding increased applicability in a number of space missions, the community is actively exploring the feasibility of missions employing active instruments on small spacecraft. In particular, synthetic aperture radars are of interest as they prove to be versatile tools for Earth Observation purposes.

This paper proposes a trade space exploration model to identify designs for space-borne satellite synthetic aperture radars that address the desired instrument requirements. Two trade space analysis approaches are proposed, based on a multivariate analysis with two evaluation metrics and using parallel coordinate plots. The paper demonstrates the utility of the trade space model by considering two case studies. The first study looks at radar instruments on a broad range of small satellite platforms. This study narrows down a trade space of 1265 feasible radar designs to less than 44 Pareto optimal designs at different center frequencies (C- and X-band), elicits conditions for L-band SARs feasibility, and discusses the feasibility bounds and technical constraints on associated instrument and spacecraft requirements. The second study considers radars for 3U CubeSat platforms. The study identifies 44 Pareto optimal designs within 12,928 feasible designs and sheds light on the operational constraints required for the development of such innovative miniaturized radars.

随着小型卫星在许多太空任务中的适用性越来越强，社区正在积极探索在小型航天器上使用有源仪器的任务的可行性。特别是，合成孔径雷达很受关注，因为它们被证明是用于地球观测目的的通用工具。

本文提出了一种贸易空间探索模型，以确定满足所需仪器要求的星载卫星合成孔径雷达的设计。提出了两种交易空间分析方法，基于具有两个评估指标和使用平行坐标图的多变量分析。本文通过考虑两个案例研究证明了贸易空间模型的实用性。第一项研究着眼于各种小型卫星平台上的雷达仪器。本研究将 1265 个可行雷达设计的交易空间缩小到不同中心频率（C 和 X 波段）下的 44 个帕累托最优设计，得出 L 波段 SAR 可行性的条件，并讨论了可行性界限和技术限制相关的仪器和航天器要求。第二项研究考虑了 3U CubeSat 平台的雷达。该研究确定了 12,928 个可行设计中的 44 个帕累托优化设计，并阐明了开发此类创新小型化雷达所需的操作限制。