Begin with the counterintuitive idea: in radar, geometry is a sensor. A monostatic radar transmits and receives from the same place and is limited by that single vantage. A multistatic system separates transmitter and receiver across multiple platforms, and the spatial diversity itself becomes information, revealing structure a single look would miss.
GeoOptics' grant US10718869B2 (inventor Thomas Patrick Yunck), classified in G01S 19/22 (satellite-based positioning and signal processing), claims a symmetrical multistatic radar constellation for Earth observation. The word symmetrical is doing real work: it points to a deliberately arranged geometry where the satellites' relative positions are part of the measurement design.
The mechanism's payoff is sensitivity and coverage from cheaper parts. Rather than build one enormous, expensive radar satellite, you distribute the function across several smaller ones and let the formation geometry recover performance. It is the same distributed-systems instinct that reshaped communications constellations, applied to sensing.
This sits at the crossover of B64G constellation design and G01S radar, the corner where Earth-observation innovation has clustered. It rhymes with later multistatic and formation-based remote-sensing work, such as the 2023 Spacety formation-based constellation grant, that pushes the same distributed-sensing thesis further.
As always, the document defines the design, not the deployment. A symmetrical multistatic constellation is demanding to fly, because the geometry that makes it work also has to be maintained against orbital perturbations. The patent tells you the intended capability; station-keeping and calibration decide whether the picture actually resolves.