SCOUTS Missions: ESA New Program for Science Mission Based on Small Satellite

This paper presents the main characteristics of the new Scout framework in ESA\u27s Earth Observation directorate aimed to exploit and support the New Space initiative in Europe in the frame of Earth science missions. In particular, details will be provided to explain the subtle balance between the commercial new space aspects and the science traditional aspects of the Scout framework. An overview of the 4 missions selected during the first consolidation round will be given as well as the one under development highlighting for each one the innovations, applications as well as the challenges and the achievements of the development phase. More details will be presented for the mission under implementation that will be on the launch pad in 2024

NanoSat MO Framework: Enabling AI Apps for Earth Observation

Following the success of the first Phi-Sat mission, in 2020, the European Space Agency (ESA) announced the opportunity to present CubeSat-based ideas for the Phi-Sat-2 mission as part of its initiative to promote the development of radically innovative technologies such as Artificial Intelligence (AI) capabilities onboard Earth Observation (EO) missions. Open Cosmos and CGI submitted a joint proposal for the Phi-Sat-2 mission idea, which takes advantage of the latest research and developments in the European ecosystem. The proposed mission idea is a game-changing EO CubeSat capable of running AI Apps that can be developed, easily deployed on the spacecraft and updated during flight operations. The AI Apps can be operated from ground using a simple user interface. This approach allows continuous improvement of the AI model parameters using the very same images acquired by the satellite. The mission takes advantage of the latest research for mission operations of CubeSats and use the NanoSat MO Framework, a framework for small satellites that allows software to be deployed in space as simple Apps, in a similar fashion to Android apps. This framework was previously demonstrated in ESA’s OPS-SAT mission, and supports the orchestration of on-board Apps. It fully decouples the App features from the underlying on-board hardware via an abstraction layer API in the form of services. Additionally, it includes a Software Development Kit with demo Apps, development tools, and tutorials to facilitate the development of Apps. By decoupling the data platform from the Apps, it is possible to distribute the development of specialized AI Apps to different partners within the Phi-Sat-2 mission consortium. The mission will include a set of default AI Apps that will be able to do vessel detection, forest monitoring, and roadmap transformation from satellite imagery. The framework allows more than just the set of default Apps and so, third-party Apps can be included on later stages of the mission lifecycle. This paper will present the NanoSat MO Framework, introduce the AI Apps that are part of the Phi-Sat-2 mission, and how the free and open-source framework enables the creation of software-defined satellite missions via on-board Apps

Overview of ESA’s Earth Observation upcoming small satellites missions

The “New Space” paradigm, has enabled the creation of many new opportunities in the space sector like the development of a large number of missions based on small and nano-satellites. The European Space Agency (ESA) is supporting these new development approaches and technology advancements, including use of Commercial-Off-The-Shelf (COTS) components to enable missions based on small and nano satellites. ESA’s Earth Observation Programmes Directorate (ESA-EOP) is already involved not only in the implementation of technologies exploiting the capabilities offered by small and nano-satellites as a complement to the EOP scientific and application-driven flagship satellites, but also in the quick validation of new approaches like A.I, super resolution or more in general in orbit data processing. ESA-EOP developments in the area of small and nano satellites are spread in three different programmatic lines, each with its own objectives: Scout and F-sat Missions and the InCubed Programme. This paper presents the overall ESA-EOP small missions strategy providing a brief insight on the genesis of each programmatic line and their selection processes including an update of the status of the first initiatives and missions under development or study

Scouting for Climate Variable with Small Satellites

HydroGNSS is a small satellite mission under the new ESA Scout programme tapping into NewSpace, within ESA’s FutureEO programme. The mission will use an innovative GNSS-Reflectometry instrument to collect parameters related to the Essential Climate Variables (ECVs): soil moisture, inundation, freeze/thaw, biomass, ocean wind speed and sea ice extent. GNSS-Reflectometry is a type of bistatic radar utilizing abundant GNSS signals as signals of opportunity, empowering small satellites to provide measurement quality associated with larger satellites. The HydroGNSS instrument introduces novel measurements compared to its predecessors on UKSA TechDemoSat-1 and NASA CYGNSS missions. These include: the acquisition of Galileo(E1) reflections, and firsts such as dual- polarization, complex ‘coherent channel’ (amplitude/phase) and second frequency (L5/E5a) acquisitions. These measurements enable HydroGNSS to innovate the L2 products, e.g. improving the ground resolution and soil moisture measurement, as dual-polarized reflections allow the discrimination of vegetation effects from soil moisture. HydroGNSS will: ● Complement and potentially gap fill other missions sensing soil moisture e.g. ESA’s SMOS and NASA’s SMAP missions. ● Complement ESA’s Biomass mission addressing coverage restrictions over Europe, North and Central America. ● Expand GNSS-Reflectometry techniques. ● Lay the foundations for a future constellation capable of offering continuity in high spatial-temporal resolution observations of the Earth’s weather and climate

The Φ-Sat-1 mission: the first on-board deep neural network demonstrator for satellite earth observation

Artificial intelligence is paving the way for a new era of algorithms focusing directly on the information contained in the data, autonomously extracting relevant features for a given application. While the initial paradigm was to have these applications run by a server hosted processor, recent advances in microelectronics provide hardware accelerators with an efficient ratio between computation and energy consumption, enabling the implementation of artificial intelligence algorithms 'at the edge'. In this way only the meaningful and useful data are transmitted to the end-user, minimising the required data bandwidth, and reducing the latency with respect to the cloud computing model. In recent years, European Space Agency is promoting the development of disruptive innovative technologies on-board Earth Observation missions. In this field, the most advanced experiment to date is the Φ-sat-1, which has demonstrated the potential of Artificial Intelligence as a reliable and accurate tool for cloud detection on-board a hyperspectral imaging mission. The activities involved included demonstrating the robustness of the Intel Movidius Myriad 2 hardware accelerator against ionising radiation, developing a Cloudscout segmentation neural network, run on Myriad 2, to identify, classify, and eventually discard on-board the cloudy images, and assessing of the innovative Hyperscout-2 hyperspectral sensor. This mission represents the first official attempt to successfully run an AI Deep Convolutional Neural Network (CNN) directly inferencing on a dedicated accelerator on-board a satellite, opening the way for a new era of discovery and commercial applications driven by the deployment of on-board AI

How future surgery will benefit from SARS-COV-2-related measures: a SPIGC survey conveying the perspective of Italian surgeons

COVID-19 negatively affected surgical activity, but the potential benefits resulting from adopted measures remain unclear. The aim of this study was to evaluate the change in surgical activity and potential benefit from COVID-19 measures in perspective of Italian surgeons on behalf of SPIGC. A nationwide online survey on surgical practice before, during, and after COVID-19 pandemic was conducted in March-April 2022 (NCT:05323851). Effects of COVID-19 hospital-related measures on surgical patients' management and personal professional development across surgical specialties were explored. Data on demographics, pre-operative/peri-operative/post-operative management, and professional development were collected. Outcomes were matched with the corresponding volume. Four hundred and seventy-three respondents were included in final analysis across 14 surgical specialties. Since SARS-CoV-2 pandemic, application of telematic consultations (4.1% vs. 21.6%; p < 0.0001) and diagnostic evaluations (16.4% vs. 42.2%; p < 0.0001) increased. Elective surgical activities significantly reduced and surgeons opted more frequently for conservative management with a possible indication for elective (26.3% vs. 35.7%; p < 0.0001) or urgent (20.4% vs. 38.5%; p < 0.0001) surgery. All new COVID-related measures are perceived to be maintained in the future. Surgeons' personal education online increased from 12.6% (pre-COVID) to 86.6% (post-COVID; p < 0.0001). Online educational activities are considered a beneficial effect from COVID pandemic (56.4%). COVID-19 had a great impact on surgical specialties, with significant reduction of operation volume. However, some forced changes turned out to be benefits. Isolation measures pushed the use of telemedicine and telemetric devices for outpatient practice and favored communication for educational purposes and surgeon-patient/family communication. From the Italian surgeons' perspective, COVID-related measures will continue to influence future surgical clinical practice

Reducing the environmental impact of surgery on a global scale: systematic review and co-prioritization with healthcare workers in 132 countries

Abstract Background Healthcare cannot achieve net-zero carbon without addressing operating theatres. The aim of this study was to prioritize feasible interventions to reduce the environmental impact of operating theatres. Methods This study adopted a four-phase Delphi consensus co-prioritization methodology. In phase 1, a systematic review of published interventions and global consultation of perioperative healthcare professionals were used to longlist interventions. In phase 2, iterative thematic analysis consolidated comparable interventions into a shortlist. In phase 3, the shortlist was co-prioritized based on patient and clinician views on acceptability, feasibility, and safety. In phase 4, ranked lists of interventions were presented by their relevance to high-income countries and low–middle-income countries. Results In phase 1, 43 interventions were identified, which had low uptake in practice according to 3042 professionals globally. In phase 2, a shortlist of 15 intervention domains was generated. In phase 3, interventions were deemed acceptable for more than 90 per cent of patients except for reducing general anaesthesia (84 per cent) and re-sterilization of ‘single-use’ consumables (86 per cent). In phase 4, the top three shortlisted interventions for high-income countries were: introducing recycling; reducing use of anaesthetic gases; and appropriate clinical waste processing. In phase 4, the top three shortlisted interventions for low–middle-income countries were: introducing reusable surgical devices; reducing use of consumables; and reducing the use of general anaesthesia. Conclusion This is a step toward environmentally sustainable operating environments with actionable interventions applicable to both high– and low–middle–income countries

A Stellar Gyroscope for Small Satellite Attitude Determination

A stellar gyroscope is a star based attitude propagator that is capable of propagating a spacecraft’s attitude in three degrees of freedom by tracking the motion of the stars in an imager\u27s field of view. The modeling and algorithm development has been done by the Space Systems Laboratory at the University of Kentucky. This paper discusses a realization of the stellar gyroscope concept on a CubeSat attitude determination and control system (ADCS) designed by SSBV Space & Ground Systems UK. The stellar gyroscope can be used to measure attitude changes from a known initial condition without drift while sufficient stars are common across frames, because absolute attitude changes are measured and not angular rates. Algorithms to perform the star detection, correspondence, and attitude propagation are presented in this paper. The Random Sample Consensus (RANSAC) approach is applied to the correspondence problem which is challenging due to spurious false-star detections, missed stars, stars leaving the field of view, and new stars entering the field of view. The CubeSat attitude determination and control system described in this paper uses a stellar gyroscope, implemented using inexpensive optics and sensor, to augment a MEMS gyroscope attitude propagation algorithm to minimize drift in the absence of an absolute attitude sensor. The MEMS device provides the high frequency measurement updates required by the control system, and the stellar gyroscope, at a lower update rate, resets the drift accumulated in the MEMS inertial gyroscope integrator. This in effect could allow sun-sensing satellites to maintain a high quality attitude estimate in eclipse, where the sun sensors can no longer contribute in absolute attitude estimates. This paper describes an algorithm to solve the relative attitude problem by identifying the change in attitude between two star field images. RANSAC is applied to solve the correspondence problem in the presence of false star detections and misses. The camera and attitude determination and control system are described, prototype hardware is used to generate night-sky datasets of known attitude changes to demonstrate the performance of the algorithm, and a simulation is developed to evaluate the stellar gyroscope’s ability in limiting the drift of an attitude propagator based on MEMS gyroscope rates. The CubeSat ADCS system developed by SSBV is an experiment on TechDemoSat-1, to be launched in early 2013

Circular polarization GNSS-R measurements of MOSAiC RS site during January 2020

This data set is part of the Multidisciplinary drifting Observatory for the Study of Arctic Climate (MOSAiC) expedition in the north pole. The observations were taken in the MOSAiC Remote Sensing site, during the second Leg (December 2019 - January 2020). The instrument is placed over an Ice floe, and the floe drifts for the entire stated period, therefore the geographical position is the actual position of the same drifting ice floe. The instrument constis on a GNSS reflectometer, collecting a combination of direct and reflected signals with an up-looking and a down-looking antenna with different polarizaitons (RHCP for the up-looking and LHCP for the down-looking antenna). The antennas are mounted on top a tripod, separated from the ground 1.86 m. and 0.64 m. respectivelly. In addition, the uplooking antenna is pointing towards the zenith, and the down-looking antenna is tilted 45º with respect to nadir (i.e. in the middle between horizon and nadir). The set of measurements are time and geo-located. Each measurement contains the transmitting satellite information, the azimuth, and elevation angle of the transmitting S/C, and the peak power of both the direct and reflected waveforms. The instrument sampling rate is 10 seconds for both channels. The purpose of the instrument is to validate the sea-ice layer model used in GNSS-R and L-band radiometry instruments

FFSCAT MISSION: PRELIMINARY RESULTS AND ICE PRODUCTS VALIDATION WITH MOSAIC CAMPAIGN DATA

Talk delivered in IEEE International Geoscience and Remote Sensing Symposium online, 26 September 2020 - 02 October 202