Adapting Low-Cost Drone Technology to CubeSats for Environmental Monitoring and Management: Harmful Algal Bloom Satellite-1 (HABsat-1)

HABsat-1 is designed to improve our understanding of algal bloom dynamics and their causes on land by addressing several current limiting factors for this application using existing satellites. For example, there is suboptimal imager design for water, insufficient spatial resolution for precise co-registration of surface observations, and too few satellites with such capabilities to defeat cloud cover in maritime, tropical and temperate climates. We will overcome these problems by merging a new low-cost multispectral imaging technology with a low-cost CubeSat bus. CubeSats cost roughly 1/100th to 1/1000th of most current long-life imaging satellites. Such cost decreases are necessary to improve upon the temporal coverage (number of appropriate satellites) and spatial resolution of current imaging satellites, such as Landsat-8, Sentinel-2 and Sentinel-3 (MERIS/OLCI). Numerous low-cost satellites reduce both overall mission cost and individual launch risks associated with large production satellites, such as Landsat, while providing the temporal and spatial resolution necessary for the study of highly dynamic and spatially variable algal blooms. A team of undergraduate aerospace engineers (the UC CubeCats), computer scientists and aerospace and geographic information science faculty have been funded by the Ohio Department of Higher Education and NOAA to adapt low-cost multispectral imagers designed for use on small drones to 3U CubeSats to further reduce the cost of environmental monitoring. This team will create a working on-orbit prototype for a constellation of CubeSat’s for routine drinking water monitoring known as Harmful Algal Bloom Satellite 1 (HABsat-1)

EIS: A Unique Hyperspectral Pathfinder Mission Combining the Compact ELOIS Instrument and the InnoSat Smallsat Platform

The EIS mission is a new IOD/IOV mission under the “Horizon 2020” program of the European Union. It combines the innovative ELOIS hyperspectral instrument with the flight-proven InnoSat platform to form a hyperspectral imaging mission offering excellent value for money. OHB Sweden is responsible for the platform, payload integration, system level AIT and for the ground segment incl. operations, while AMOS is delivering the instrument and will validate the data. The target orbit is a LEO SSO orbit at 630 km and the lifetime is 5 years. The platform is enhanced with very high pointing performance and stability and an X-band link for the high data-rate required by the payload. ELOIS is a state-of-the-art instrument featuring several innovative optical, mechanical, and electrical designs. The instrument provides very high radiometric and SNR performances over a broad VIS-SWIR spectral range and within a very low SWaP. This makes it an excellent instrument for affordable cutting-edge smallsat imaging constellations. The mission will be controlled from the OHB Sweden Mission Control Center in Kista, Sweden. The combination of the InnoSat platform and the ELOIS instrument will be a powerful demonstrator for future hyperspectral missions addressing a wide range of applications

Laplace plane GeoSAR feasibility study: summary of the group design project MSc in astronautics and space engineering 2014-15, Cranfield University

Students of the MSc course in Astronautics and Space Engineering 2014-15 at Cranfield University performed a feasibility study of a geosynchronous radar mission for their group project. This report summarises the students' work and their findings. The report consists of an overview and discussion of the technical work of the project and a compilation of the executive summaries which describe the special contributions of each student. The mission studied is a geosynchronous synthetic aperture radar Earth observation mission using the Laplace orbit plane to reduce station-keeping propulsion demand. User applications are drawn from a wide range of sectors (agriculture, meteorology, geohazards, etc.) and are translated into system design requirements. The proposed mission design uses satellites with 13 m diameter antennas and a total electrical power demand of 6 kW. The mission seems feasible, although further study is recommended especially for the areas of _ orbit selection with respect to user requirements, imaging performance and orbit maintenance, _ mass budget (driven largely by the propulsion system), _ user requirements, imaging performance and operational imaging modes, _ opportunities for improved imaging with a constellation

In-Orbit Demonstration of the iSIM-170 Optical Payload Onboard the ISS

iSIM-170 is anoptical payload for Earth Observations with sub-meterresolution in VNIR bands. The payload will be in-orbit-demonstrated at the ISS after a successful launch with the HTV-9 mission by JAXA and afte its installation on the Kibo module occurred on June 11th, 2020. Prior to its flight, iSIM-170 underwent an accelerated development programme culminating in the successful completion of all verifications and reviews. iSIM-170 has been developed by the Spanish company SATLANTIS, in collaboration with the University of Florida, to become the gold standard of imaging payloads for microsatellites. It consists of four integrated components: a binocular diffraction-limited set of telescopes; a high precision, robust and light alloy structure; a set of CMOS array detector units; and a high-performance-reconfigurable on-board image processor. The goal of this in-orbit-demonstration mission consists of commissioning the payload and characterizing the overall instrument’s capabilities, especially its ability to provide a factor ~2-3 improvement on spatial resolution below its diffraction limit design, using our super-resolution algorithms. The payload will be operated for three months to obtain TRL-8 qualification performing uplink and downlink activities managed by JAXA, as intermediary between iSIM-170and SATLANTIS. Preliminary results demonstrating iSIM image quality will be shown at this conference

Near earth objects space observatory

In this Master Thesis we begin with an introduction about Near Earth Objects (NEOs). We start with the different kind of existing NEOs, and then we will focus more on which ones can represent the biggest hazard for Earth. Thus many studies suggest irrelevant number of meteorites hit the earth each year, but actually is very hard to know number of exact hit to Earth, but for introducing some meteors are caused by pea-sized of rock, for good estimated number of meteorites per year is necessary to carefully monitoring the meteorites per day in one area and finally extrapolate this data for all area of Earth, or find meteorites fall in to the dry regions and estimate for all area of Earth some valor. However, is so hard to find exact value because of different size ranges and all procedures have errors, but the estimate value of the mass of material that falls on Earth each year rang from 37000-78000 tons [23]. Most of this mass would come from dust particles. A study done in 1996 calculated that for objects in the 10 grams to 1 kilograms size range 2900-7300 kilograms per year hit Earth, furthermore, between 36 and 166 meteorites larger than 10 grams fall to Earth per million square kilometers per year. Thus that translates to 18000 to 84000 meteorites bigger than 10 grams falls to Earth. Nowadays different space agencies of several countries have their programs to detect hazardous NEOs, but in case of many of this agencies they need extra help from amateurs astronomers. Furthermore, all of this programs represent different disadvantages such as high cost of operation, no centralized data base and work with people that are amateurs and no depending to any agencies. New systems will be proposed to detect on time, the hazardous NEOs. These new systems are an answer for the actual issues to detect NEOs on time, and issues of the main official agencies to resolve their problems with this kind of the space objects. The system where is proposed here is a system based on the constellation of the satellites in the Low Earth Orbit (LEO), equipped with a Newtonian Telescope on board. Furthermore, this system had a ground stations and centralized database, thus that all information about NEOs compiled by satellites can be used for the space agencies to detect on time hazardous NEOs. The Satellites use low cost components and they are respectable to the environment, the function of the satellites will be determined during this thesis, although the LEO present some conditions, like drag, and depending the mass of the satellites, the orbit can be free after several orbits, when the satellites burn because of contact with drag. For design and simulation of the system we use required some specific tools like Solidworks for the 3D design and Moon2.0 for the orbital simulation, and finally we propose an alternative system to put our satellites in the orbit, with a system called QuickFast

Mission analysis for two potential asteroids threat scenarios: Optimal impact strategies and technology evaluation

The Space Mission Planning Advisory Group SMPAG's mission is to prepare for an international response to a Near Earth Object impact threat through the exchange of information, development of options for collaborative research and mission opportunities, and to conduct Near Earth Object (NEO) impact threat mitigation planning activities. This paper presents the preliminary work performed by the Italian Space Agency Delegation for defining few reference missions for different NEO-threat scenarios and carrying out Phase 0 studies. In this paper two scenarios are identified to study the possible response in case of a real NEO-threat. A direct and resonant impact scenario for an asteroid deflection mission are identified resembling to the asteroid 2010RF12 but with an increased asteroid mass. Then the mission analysis and spacecraft design for the direct impact case is performed and the results discussed

Definition and preliminary design of the LAWS (Laser Atmospheric Wind Sounder), volume 2, phase 2

Accurate knowledge of winds is critical to our understanding of the earth's climate and to our ability to predict climate change. Winds are a fundamental component of highly nonlinear interactions between oceans, land surfaces, and the atmosphere. Interactions at these interfaces are the focus of much climate change research. Although wind information is critical for advancing our understanding, currently most of our description of atmospheric motion is obtained indirectly - i.e., derived from observations of temperature and moisture through geostrophic relationships. Direct measurement of winds over the globe is limited to land-based rawinsonde surface stations and a few ship/aircraft reports. Cloud track winds using satellite imagery are calculated but must be used with great care. The LAWS mission objective, therefore, is to provide diurnal and global direct observations of winds - an observation that will incrementally enhance our knowledge of the earth's climate and physical processes responsible for its change. This document is Volume 2 of the LAWS Phase 2 Final Study Report and describes the definition and preliminary design of the LAWS instrument, together with details of the laser breadboard program conducted during the last 18 months of the program