High resolution and frequent revisits - a feasibility assessment of a business case for an end-to-end Earth Observation system

Paper number

IAC-11,B1,4,6,x9320

Author

Mr. Patrick Hambloch, Deutsches Zentrum für Luft- und Raumfahrt e.V. (DLR), Germany

Coauthor

Ms. Theresa Huang, The Boeing Company, United States

Coauthor

Mr. Noah Saks, Astrium GmbH, Germany

Coauthor

Mr. Michael Koller, European Space Agency (ESA), Germany

Coauthor

Mr. Daniel Choukroun, Delft University of Technology (TU Delft), The Netherlands

Year

2011

Abstract

The market for Earth Observation applications is expanding beyond purely government applications to include commercial products and services that are attractive to the mass consumer market. To exploit the untapped potential of mobile society, this paper proposes and investigates a system architecture to distribute high resolution images of the entire globe that are frequently updated to the mobile society. Such a system would revolutionise the way earth observation data is used by consumers and would pave the way for applications such as daily updates of navigation maps, connecting information in social media to the latest available satellite data or providing location-based services with the most up-to-date images.

This paper explores the proposed system architecture from two perspectives. First, a market analysis will be presented to assess the financial viability of investing in such a system. The market analysis will review the market trends, the value proposition of the system to the mobile society, the expected revenues that can be expected to be earned by the venture and the required financing to fund the venture. Second, a technical feasibility will be conducted to examine the end-to-end system detail. The technical feasibility assessment will explore the space segment, ground stations, control centres, processing facilities and the distribution chain of the products and services to the end users.

The work covered in this paper has been performed by the SpaceTech 13 team as part of the SpaceTech Master’s degree programme in Space Systems Engineering of the Technical University of Delft.

Abstract document

IAC-11,B1,4,6,x9320.brief.pdf

Manuscript document

IAC-11,B1,4,6,x9320.pdf (🔒 authorized access only).

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