A “863” Key Project, namely, “High-performance Aviation SAR Remote Sensing Application System,” has been currently approved by the Ministry of Science and Technology (MOST) based on a prudent process of feasibility study and assessment. The project is to be funded by the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) and led by Institute of Electronics, within which the Center for Earth Observation and Digital Earth (CEODE) will mainly undertake the first and fourth tasks of the subject (2007AA120301 the overall system and system integration technology, 2007AA120304 topographic mapping application model).

Focusing on meeting the national significant application demands, such as the topographic mapping in complicated areas, emergency responding, environment and disaster monitoring of major programs, this project will develop the high-performance synthetic aperture radar technologies and systems which fully possess independent intellectual property rights and achieve the world's advanced level. Besides, it will build an innovative integration system of aviation SAR remote sensing application with the capability of all-weather, all-day, three-dimensional measurement and multiple data acquisition.

The implementation of the project will be definitely conducive to marvelous development of SAR earth observation systems and technologies, all-round breakthrough in the high-resolution, high-precision, wide-swath, and other multi-mode synthetic aperture radar technologies, rapid enhancement regarding the multi-band, multi-polarization, interference Synthetic aperture radar systems, as well as crucial improvement of the integration technologies on  high-precision positioning and attitude measurement system.