Design and Implementation of Software Solutions for Satellite Ground Segment, with Application to the ESEO Mission

The work presented in this thesis focuses on the design and implementation of software solutions for the ground segment of satellite missions, with application to the ESEO mission. The ESEO project is currently in Phase D after successfully passing the preliminary and critical design reviews and the launch is foreseen in 2017. Starting from our experience with ALMASat-1 mission, we greatly improved the ground systems for a more complex mission like ESEO. One of the most important improvement is the introduction of a Software Defined Radio with a dedicated software application acting as a transceiver capable of communicating with the on-board transceiver at the registered frequencies and using the defined communication protocol and modulation scheme. It also displays and registers the acquired signal for post-processing tasks. The spacecraft monitoring and control system and the telemetry data visualisation and display tool have been designed keeping in mind the high number of subsystems and payloads and the possibility to re-use the same software for future missions with the minimum effort. The introduction of a connection to a database is essential considering the high number of spacecraft and mission data. This thesis also presents the software solutions designed and implemented for ground stations used by EUMETSAT to operate LEO and GEO weather satellites. The Ground Station Analysis and Reporting tool was developed to allow engineers checking through periodic reports the performance of two ground stations located in Svalbard. The Satellite Passes and Conflicts Engine supports now the schedule of Metop and NOAA satellite passes over Svalbard ground station and it can be used to compute passes and resolve conflicts of multiple satellites over multiple ground stations based on the propagation of the TLEs. Finally, a ground station monitoring and control simulator has been implemented and fully tested for the MTG programme

Third International Symposium on Space Mission Operations and Ground Data Systems, part 1

Under the theme of 'Opportunities in Ground Data Systems for High Efficiency Operations of Space Missions,' the SpaceOps '94 symposium included presentations of more than 150 technical papers spanning five topic areas: Mission Management, Operations, Data Management, System Development, and Systems Engineering. The papers focus on improvements in the efficiency, effectiveness, productivity, and quality of data acquisition, ground systems, and mission operations. New technology, techniques, methods, and human systems are discussed. Accomplishments are also reported in the application of information systems to improve data retrieval, reporting, and archiving; the management of human factors; the use of telescience and teleoperations; and the design and implementation of logistics support for mission operations

Astronautics and aeronautics, 1978: A chronology

This is the 18th in a series of annual chronologies of significant events in the fields of astronautics and aeronautics. Events covered are international as well as national and political as well as scientific and technical. This series is a reference work for historians, NASA personnel, government agencies, congressional staffs, and the media

Remotely Sensed Data: Technology, Management and Markets

This report examines U.S. plans for managing the prodigious quantities of data expected from current, planned, and future remote sensing satellites. In particular, it explores the Earth Observing System Data and Information System, which NASA is developing to manage and process the data from its Earth Observing System of satellites. It also analyzes the factors affecting the growth of the market for privately generated remotely sensed data

Astronautics and aeronautics, 1977: A chronology

This publication is a chronology of events during the year 1977 in the fields of aeronautical and space research, development, activity, and policy. It includes appendixes, an index, and illustrations. Chronological entries list sources for further inquiry

Space-Based Remote Sensing of the Earth: A Report to the Congress

The commercialization of the LANDSAT Satellites, remote sensing research and development as applied to the Earth and its atmosphere as studied by NASA and NOAA is presented. Major gaps in the knowledge of the Earth and its atmosphere are identified and a series of space based measurement objectives are derived. The near-term space observations programs of the United States and other countries are detailed. The start is presented of the planning process to develop an integrated national program for research and development in Earth remote sensing for the remainder of this century and the many existing and proposed satellite and sensor systems that the program may include are described

Fourth Conference on Artificial Intelligence for Space Applications

Proceedings of a conference held in Huntsville, Alabama, on November 15-16, 1988. The Fourth Conference on Artificial Intelligence for Space Applications brings together diverse technical and scientific work in order to help those who employ AI methods in space applications to identify common goals and to address issues of general interest in the AI community. Topics include the following: space applications of expert systems in fault diagnostics, in telemetry monitoring and data collection, in design and systems integration; and in planning and scheduling; knowledge representation, capture, verification, and management; robotics and vision; adaptive learning; and automatic programming

Earth imaging with microsatellites: An investigation, design, implementation and in-orbit demonstration of electronic imaging systems for earth observation on-board low-cost microsatellites.

This research programme has studied the possibilities and difficulties of using 50 kg microsatellites to perform remote imaging of the Earth. The design constraints of these missions are quite different to those encountered in larger, conventional spacecraft. While the main attractions of microsatellites are low cost and fast response times, they present the following key limitations: Payload mass under 5 kg, Continuous payload power under 5 Watts, peak power up to 15 Watts, Narrow communications bandwidths (9.6 / 38.4 kbps), Attitude control to within 5°, No moving mechanics. The most significant factor is the limited attitude stability. Without sub-degree attitude control, conventional scanning imaging systems cannot preserve scene geometry, and are therefore poorly suited to current microsatellite capabilities. The foremost conclusion of this thesis is that electronic cameras, which capture entire scenes in a single operation, must be used to overcome the effects of the satellite's motion. The potential applications of electronic cameras, including microsatellite remote sensing, have erupted with the recent availability of high sensitivity field-array CCD (charge-coupled device) image sensors. The research programme has established suitable techniques and architectures necessary for CCD sensors, cameras and entire imaging systems to fulfil scientific/commercial remote sensing despite the difficult conditions on microsatellites. The author has refined these theories by designing, building and exploiting in-orbit five generations of electronic cameras. The major objective of meteorological scale imaging was conclusively demonstrated by the Earth imaging camera flown on the UoSAT-5 spacecraft in 1991. Improved cameras have since been carried by the KITSAT-1 (1992) and PoSAT-1 (1993) microsatellites. PoSAT-1 also flies a medium resolution camera (200 metres) which (despite complete success) has highlighted certain limitations of microsatellites for high resolution remote sensing. A reworked, and extensively modularised, design has been developed for the four camera systems deployed on the FASat-Alfa mission (1995). Based on the success of these missions, this thesis presents many recommendations for the design of microsatellite imaging systems. The novelty of this research programme has been the principle of designing practical camera systems to fit on an existing, highly restrictive, satellite platform, rather than conceiving a fictitious small satellite to support a high performance scanning imager. This pragmatic approach has resulted in the first incontestable demonstrations of the feasibility of remote sensing of the Earth from inexpensive microsatellites