Optical sensors, as powerful as they become, are inherently limited by cloud cover, and it has been observed from existing optical satellite systems that it is difficult to obtain a cloud-free scene of certain areas in Malaysia. Thus, with the specific wavelength of radar, cloud cover can be penetrated without any effect on the imagery. Furthermore, radar is an active remote sensing system which means that it provides its own source of energy to produce an image. It therefore does not require sunlight (as optical system do) and data can be acquired either by day or night. Synthetic Aperture Radar's (SAR) all weather, day-night remote sensing capability and visibility anywhere on Earth is expected to result in numerous scientifically valuable and commercially feasible applications.

Existing SAR imager systems have been severely constraint by their very large volume, mass and power requirements and obviously their cost. However, ATSB^® has taken a first step undergoing a feasibility study in order to search a SAR design and performance that could result in significant size, mass and power compared to existing SAR systems and simultaneously meeting the requirement of the Malaysian users.