Method for observation of terrestrial objects from a spinning satellite using an interferometer and detector arrangement for repeated measurement of an object passing past it due to the spin of the satellite

摘要

Method for observation of an object from a satellite uses an interferometer (1-3) in which an incident beam (I) is split into two beams with a resultant path difference. Detectors (4) detect beam interference. The method has the following steps: (a) movement of an object in front of the interferometer, sampling of resultant interference patterns with the object movement creating different beam paths (b) repetition of step b for different beam path lengths. Each object passage corresponds to a different detector row. The invention is particularly applicable to a spinning satellite.