A novel approach to cost vs. time performance optimisation in EO System design
- Paper number
IAC-09.B1.2.1
- Author
Mr. Fabio Di Giorgio, Thales Alenia Space Italia, Italy
- Coauthor
Mrs. Barbara Bussi, Thales Alenia Space Italia, Italy
- Year
2009
- Abstract
The development of Spaceborne Earth Observation, with its capability of acquiring huge amounts of sensed data over large areas of the world, has provided an impressive means of gathering information on our environment, with a positive influence on political, economical and environmental aspects. However EO System cost still represents a market barrier for several nations that could otherwise benefit from Space Observation. The revisit time is a critical parameter of a Remote Sensing System, as it characterises the frequency of its access to a specific site, and some modern Systems are based on constellations of satellites in order to reduce this time and improve the system responsiveness; however, this leads to an increase of the system cost versus a single satellite System. This paper discusses a novel approach to the design of an Earth Observation System, mainly targeted to smaller nations, which provides a maximum revisit time performance in the order of 12 to 24 hours over the area of interest, yet is based on a single Sun Synchronous satellite in order to reduce system cost. This performance on the area of interest is obtained waiving from the requirement of global accessibility, with a very slow drift of the satellites ground tracks and thus creating a mesh on ground. The chosen drift of the Ground Tracks allows repeat pass interferometric acquisitions at a 1 day interval, achieving a higher coherence versus usual orbital cycle repeat pass ones besides a very stable interferometric baseline. This concept allows nations placed in different areas to federate thus reducing the individual system cost to a fraction of conventional ones and yet benefit from the same high performance due to the lack of conflicts in the access to ground. Inclined orbits are known to improve time performance at lower latitudes, and indeed this concept can also be applied to such an orbit, yet the main advantage is performance optimization at medium to high latitudes, maintaining the power and thermal design advantages of a Sun-Synchronous Orbit.
- Abstract document
- Manuscript document
(absent)