System for small satellite onboard processing

摘要

Small satellites (Small Sats) (i.e., satellites weighing less than 100 kg) are attracting interest in the Department of Defense (DoD), Intelligence Community (IC) and commercial market for space-based data collection (e.g., imaging) and communication (e.g., links or relays). In fact, many emerging missions use constellations of many (e.g., greater 100) Small Sats for these purposes. Small Sats can be used for communications, space situational awareness, and Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance (ISR). Advantages of Small Sats over larger commercial and military satellites include cost and deployment time. The problem addressed by this paper is that of designing a system to enable Small Sats, considering size, weight, and power (SWAP) constraints, to collect mission critical sensor data, and then efficiently process these data and transit the derived decision-relevant information to operators. We call this systems the System for Small Sat Onboard Processing (S3OP). S3OP results show that reducing data to information onboard the Small Sat saves collection costs, downlink transponder bandwidth costs, and time and expense for operators on the ground who are responsible for time critical decisions for their respective missions.