Session
Session 7: Advanced Technologies 2
Abstract
Planet's mission is to monitor global change by imaging the entire Earth every day. To achieve this objective, Planet has launched over 250 satellites and built the mission control and ground station infrastructure to autonomously monitor and control the satellites and download their data. Historically, CubeSat radios have been downlink limited because of size, weight, and power (SWaP) constraints. Planet has overcome the downlink data rate limitation by optimizing every part of the radio communication system to achieve over 220 Mbps peak and 160 Mbps average data throughput.
This paper presents an overview of the latest generation compact, low-mass, and low-power High Speed Downlink (HSD) radio that was built and deployed on over 100 3U form-factor Dove satellites that form Planet's Mission 1 constellation. The HSD operates at X-band and is built using commercial-o-the-shelf (COTS) parts with a high-gain spacecraft antenna and reasonably sized ground station antennas (4.5m - 7.6m diameter reflector). Planet's X-band ground station network includes 22 active dishes across 8 sites located around the world. Commercial standards, such as the DVB-S2 modulation and coding suite, have been used where appropriate. The latest generation HSD system is capable of providing downlink volumes of 12-15 GB during a single ground station pass, which has a duration of 7 to 10 minutes. Some lessons learned along the way are presented as Planet transitioned from building and operating a few prototypes to a production constellation of over 100 satellites and 22 active ground stations.
Presentation
Dove High Speed Downlink System
Planet's mission is to monitor global change by imaging the entire Earth every day. To achieve this objective, Planet has launched over 250 satellites and built the mission control and ground station infrastructure to autonomously monitor and control the satellites and download their data. Historically, CubeSat radios have been downlink limited because of size, weight, and power (SWaP) constraints. Planet has overcome the downlink data rate limitation by optimizing every part of the radio communication system to achieve over 220 Mbps peak and 160 Mbps average data throughput.
This paper presents an overview of the latest generation compact, low-mass, and low-power High Speed Downlink (HSD) radio that was built and deployed on over 100 3U form-factor Dove satellites that form Planet's Mission 1 constellation. The HSD operates at X-band and is built using commercial-o-the-shelf (COTS) parts with a high-gain spacecraft antenna and reasonably sized ground station antennas (4.5m - 7.6m diameter reflector). Planet's X-band ground station network includes 22 active dishes across 8 sites located around the world. Commercial standards, such as the DVB-S2 modulation and coding suite, have been used where appropriate. The latest generation HSD system is capable of providing downlink volumes of 12-15 GB during a single ground station pass, which has a duration of 7 to 10 minutes. Some lessons learned along the way are presented as Planet transitioned from building and operating a few prototypes to a production constellation of over 100 satellites and 22 active ground stations.
