A study of a potential venus radar topography mission

Radar has been shown to be the best way to view the surface of Venus as was demonstrated by Pioneer Venus Orbiter, Veneras 15 and 16, and Magellan Missions. Each of these missions progressively increased our knowledge of the surface and it has been nearly twenty years since Magellan covered nearly all the surface with SAR images from 120 to 300 m resolution. Advances in technology including onboard processing and high rate down links now make it possible to propose a mission the would create a data set of the topography of Venus at 50 m resolution posting and 5 m height accuracy. Other modes of the radar, using the same hardware, would yield 6 m resolution images of small (10 km by 10 km) areas. This paper describes one point design.