Ionospheric Effects on Spaceborne Synthetic Aperture Radar and a New Capability of Imaging the Ionosphere from Space

Abstract

This article reviews research activities and results in a new field, where ionospheric effects on spaceborne synthetic aperture radar have been investigated and techniques of imaging the ionosphere using the same radar are also explored. The research was originally to minimize ionospheric-induced distortions and contaminations in Earth remote sensing observations. As a product, the radar-based high-resolution ionospheric imaging from a low Earth orbit satellite can also benefit studies of space weather effects on the ionospheric density distribution in essentially all latitude regions, which would provide useful information to studies of coupling of the magnetosphere, ionosphere, and thermosphere.