Abstract
Satellogic is a vertically integrated geospatial company, designing, building and operating its own fleet of Earth Observation (EO) satellites. Satellogic is developing and continuously improving a scalable, fully automated EO platform, able to remap the entire planet at both high-cadence and high-resolution. Satellogic’s multispectral payloads collect sub-meter resolution images from an altitude of ~475 km in four spectral bands (Blue, Green, Red, Near-IR).
The flat-field correction of TOA imagery can be challenging for light-weight satellites with no moving parts. On-orbit calculation of flat fields allows to recreate the optical and thermal conditions of the operative satellites, assess changes during the launch and perform periodic recalibration to correct for any new artifacts, such as foreign object debris. Dedicated campaigns to collect specific captures for flat-field calculation entail significant operational cost when scaled to the entire fleet. In Satellogic, we designed an on-orbit calibration procedure using only operational imagery, which allows fast, periodic and automatic corrections of each satellite’s imagery at zero cost. In this talk we will present our automatic end-to-end calibration procedure, including the validation adopted to periodically monitor the intra-pixel radiometric accuracy of each satellite. We will conclude by comparing the results of the flat-field frame quality from the entire operational fleet over time.
In-orbit, Automatic and Periodic Flat-field Calculation of NewSat Mark IV Imagery: A High Resolution Microsatellite Constellation
Satellogic is a vertically integrated geospatial company, designing, building and operating its own fleet of Earth Observation (EO) satellites. Satellogic is developing and continuously improving a scalable, fully automated EO platform, able to remap the entire planet at both high-cadence and high-resolution. Satellogic’s multispectral payloads collect sub-meter resolution images from an altitude of ~475 km in four spectral bands (Blue, Green, Red, Near-IR).
The flat-field correction of TOA imagery can be challenging for light-weight satellites with no moving parts. On-orbit calculation of flat fields allows to recreate the optical and thermal conditions of the operative satellites, assess changes during the launch and perform periodic recalibration to correct for any new artifacts, such as foreign object debris. Dedicated campaigns to collect specific captures for flat-field calculation entail significant operational cost when scaled to the entire fleet. In Satellogic, we designed an on-orbit calibration procedure using only operational imagery, which allows fast, periodic and automatic corrections of each satellite’s imagery at zero cost. In this talk we will present our automatic end-to-end calibration procedure, including the validation adopted to periodically monitor the intra-pixel radiometric accuracy of each satellite. We will conclude by comparing the results of the flat-field frame quality from the entire operational fleet over time.