Session
Technical Session II: Measuring Small Satellite Utility
Abstract
High resolution mapping systems follow the trend to smaller ground sample distances (GSD) making use of the best technology available at the given time. From the 80 m GSD of ERTS in 1972, the GSD now approached 1 m and even less. Mass and power consumption of spacecrafts and imaging instruments follow similar trends in conjunction with the immense improvements in very divers fields of technology. The paper tries to give a metrics and analytical method to assess how far can we go with decreasing instrument size and decreasing the GSD at the same time and what features the spacecraft needs to provide. In this context the paper deals with such important parameters for mapping with small satellites like spatial resolution, radiometry, pointing accuracy and stability. The parameters are derived from a MTF based metrics. It is shown that the images as well as the spacecraft bus need to follow certain rules to allow the high resolution images aboard of small satellites.
Presentation Slides
A Metrics to Support the Design of Small Satellite Based High Resolution Mapping Systems
High resolution mapping systems follow the trend to smaller ground sample distances (GSD) making use of the best technology available at the given time. From the 80 m GSD of ERTS in 1972, the GSD now approached 1 m and even less. Mass and power consumption of spacecrafts and imaging instruments follow similar trends in conjunction with the immense improvements in very divers fields of technology. The paper tries to give a metrics and analytical method to assess how far can we go with decreasing instrument size and decreasing the GSD at the same time and what features the spacecraft needs to provide. In this context the paper deals with such important parameters for mapping with small satellites like spatial resolution, radiometry, pointing accuracy and stability. The parameters are derived from a MTF based metrics. It is shown that the images as well as the spacecraft bus need to follow certain rules to allow the high resolution images aboard of small satellites.
