Research Summaries

Back Mission Architecture for Maritime Domain Awareness Using Small Satellites

Fiscal Year 2019
Division Research & Sponsored Programs
Department NPS Naval Research Program
Investigator(s) Lan, Wenschel D.
Sponsor NPS Naval Research Program (Navy)
Summary There are gaps in current GEOINT systems that need to be filled for persistent intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance, particularly for dark targets. The use of small satellite constellations, both in commercial and government applications, has been rapidly increasing in recent years. While several of these systems have GEOINT capabilities, this is not their primary mission and do not meet the revisit rate and latitude requirements for Maritime Domain Awareness.

Preliminary results show that a large constellation, on the order of hundreds of electro-optical (EO) small satellites, is necessary to meet pre-determined revisit rates and latitude requirements for Maritime Domain Awareness (MDA). While the communication and data processing elements of the mission architecture have been identified, the launch and cost elements have not yet been investigated.

This study will address these pieces of the mission architecture, as well as investigate different sensor types and the effects on the mission architecture. Once the mission architecture is complete, a preliminary spacecraft can be designed to fill the current gap in MDA needs.

The objectives for this research are as follows:
1) Determine the launch segment requirements to support a constellation of approximately 200 small satellites, considering both traditional EELVs and VCLS small launch vehicles.
2) Perform a cost analysis, taking the primary and alternative solutions into consideration.
3) Perform a trade study on sensor type and the effect on the constellation design and the key performance parameters (KPPs) of coverage, revisit rate, and image resolution.
4) Complete a preliminary design of a spacecraft that can meet the desired requirements for Maritime Domain Awareness.

Deliverables include: STK models; cost estimation results; spacecraft design preliminary design review (PDR) slide package; and a detailed technical report
Keywords
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