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Objectives and Applications
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The space segment consists of two companion satellites to S1, each carrying a receive-only SAR instrument, complemented by a TIR payload. The companion satellites fly in two different configurations with S1. In the stereo configuration, one companion is leading and the other is trailing S1. The optimum distance to S1 (stereo baseline) is determined from a complex trade-off on the performance of both instruments. One of the strongest drivers is the improved viewing geometry associated with large squint angles and both concepts therefore use a long baseline (350 km for Concept A and 400 km for Concept B). The Harmony orbit is dictated by the S1 orbit, which is a Sun-synchronous, frozen orbit with a repetition cycle of 12 days, during which 175 orbits are completed.
Harmony is dedicated to the observation and quantification of smallscale motion and deformation (velocity gradient) fields, primarily, at the air-sea interface (winds, waves, and surface currents, including measurements over extreme events), of the solid Earth (tectonic strain), and in the cryosphere (glacier flows and surface height changes).
Primary mission objectives:
1. Air-sea interaction, tropical and extra-tropical cyclones, and ocean mesoscale and submesocale processes;
2. Tectonic strain; and
3. Glacier and ice-sheet mass balance and glacier dynamics.
Harmony will make significant contributions to other science domains, including volcanoes, permafrost, land-slides and several sea-ice objectives. These have been captured as secondary mission objectives and have been studied in some depth in the Phase 0 science studies.
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