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Small satellites provide vital information about environmental conditions on Earth. However, these satellites typically operate independently from each other and below their full capacity. To address this, the European Space Agency (ESA) aims to promote innovative technologies for a new family of Earth observation nanosatellites called Sentinels.
The EU-funded FSSCAT project will demonstrate novel and cost-effective solutions to improve the performance of small Earth observation satellites. It will also validate the Federated Satellite System (FSS) concept, which enables networks of satellites to communicate to optimise their resource use. The project leaders believe constellations of nanosatellites will result in earth-monitoring data of unprecedented resolution, while opening up new commercial possibilities.
“FSSCAT is the precursor of a scalable constellation of federated small Earth observation satellites that has the potential to dramatically change the way ESA operates and procures its satellites in the future,” say the principal investigators, Adriano Camps of Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya (UPC) and Institut d’Estudis Espacials de Catalunya in Spain, and Alessandro Golkar of the Skolkovo Institute of Science and Technology in Russia, who is a visiting professor at UPC.
Climate change tracers
FSSCAT’s mission includes dual-use microwave and multi-spectral optical payloads for Earth observation and a novel optical inter-satellite link (OISL) for information exchange between nanosatellites in low earth orbit.
The new instruments will be carried by two nanosatellites called CubeSats. These are built from standard modular units (U) measuring 10 cm x 10 cm x 11 cm, which typically weigh less than 1.33 kg per unit. The project’s two 6U CubeSats are designed to support the EU’s Copernicus Land and Marine Environment Monitoring Services.
From a technological perspective, FSSCAT will demonstrate the feasibility of free space OISL between two nanosatellites in low earth orbit. The CubeSats will orbit at an altitude of 450-550 km, a few kilometres apart, and share information via an optical laser beam. The project team will also demonstrate novel technology for pointing accuracy performance – something not previously demonstrated for small satellites in space. According to the researchers, the novel OISL is a key building block for future small satellite federations and autonomous spacecraft.
“Apart from the technology developments, FSSCAT will provide soil-moisture measurements, nowadays provided by the ESA Soil Moisture and Ocean Salinity mission, for which there is no planned follow-on,” explain Camps and Golkar. Soil moisture, an important predictor for fire risk, will be measured at a greater spatial resolution than previously possible.
“FSSCAT will also provide sea ice thickness and cover data and detect the presence of water ponds over the ice,” they say. “These are important variables controlling the exchange of heat between the ocean and the atmosphere, while at the same time are tracers of climate change.”
Prize-winning performance
The ESA launched the Sentinel Small Sat (S∧3) Challenge as a category in the Copernicus Masters awards, known as the ‘Space Oscars’. At a ceremony during European Space Week in Tallinn, Estonia, in November 2017, the FSSCAT project picked up first prize, worth EUR 1 million.
The prize money will enable the consortium to construct the two CubeSats. Balamis, a UPC spin-off company, will manufacture the front-end of the microwave payload in Barcelona. The OISL system is being manufactured by Estonian company Golbriak Space, which is planning to commercialise the technology.
The project builds on the successful results of previous FP7 and H2020 projects: E-GEM for Global Navigation Satellite System Reflectometry, ONION for emerging FSS concepts for Earth observation, and SENSYF for a system for fully automated data acquisition and processing.