Use-Case-Driven Systems Engineering for a Global Wildfire Early-Detection & Monitoring Cubesat Constellation

Wildfires cause devastating losses in human lives, infrastructure and forests as well as considerable financial costs for suppression and rebuilding. Imagining, designing and building a CubeSat constellation to counter and prevent such catastrophic events in the near-future has become possible through recent technological advancements. As initial systems engineering design requirements have been derived through interviews with various potential user stakeholders, research based on publications and calculations. The results presented are trade-off design values for the needed main parameters spatial resolution (200 m/pixel), revisit times (30 minutes) and spectral multiband resolutions (at least dual infrared - MWIR & LWIR - with additionally NIR or VIS), as well as additional derived sensing and user requirements