Simulation Study of Moon-Based InSAR Observation for Solid Earth Tides

Abstract

The observation of solid earth tides (SET) provides an important basis for understanding the structure of the earth’s interior, and has long been the focus of research in geoscience. However, actually, there still exist some limitations in capturing its global-scale information only with ground stations. Remote sensing technology can realize large-scale deformation monitoring of high point density constantly. However, it is still difficult for the artificial satellite system to meet the requirements of SET monitoring in terms of field of view and temporal resolution now. In this work, the moon is hypothesized as a new platform for SET observation combined with interferometric synthetic aperture radar (InSAR) technology. Based on the tidal model and lunar ephemeris, the spatial and temporal characteristics of the SET from the lunar view were analyzed. Furthermore, the calculations demonstrate that more abundant SET information can be observed in this view. After comparing various observation modes, the single-station with repeat-pass differential InSAR was selected for this simulation. We mainly considered the restriction of observation geometry on moon-based InSAR under three signal bandwidths, thereby providing a reference for the sensor design. The results demonstrate that the moon-based platform offers the potential to become an optimal SET observation method.