Earth monitoring system and method of managing a satellite constellation
AssigneeIceye Oy
InventorsRafal Modrzewski, Pekka Laurila, Ignacio Chechile
Life of this patent
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Abstract
An Earth monitoring system comprises a satellite constellation (310) and a schedule calculation module (302) located on Earth. The schedule calculation module (302) may be configured to implement a satellite management method receiving a request post-launch for a location to be imaged; recalculating an existing schedule of the satellites to provide an updated schedule that includes imaging the location; and providing the updated schedule for transmission to one or more of the satellites.
Claims25
A method of managing a constellation of Earth observation satellites at ground control, each satellite comprising a synthetic aperture radar for imaging Earth, the method comprising:
- receiving a request post-launch to image a location on a surface of Earth;
- identifying, from the constellation of satellites, qualifying satellites whose paths enable imaging of the location within a time window;
- for each qualifying satellite, identifying one or more execution sets, each execution set comprising the qualifying satellite, a ground station for providing an uplink and a ground station for providing a down link for communicating with the qualifying satellite, and at least one of the execution sets comprising:
- one or more further qualifying satellites for imaging the location using more than one satellite;
- and
- respective ground stations for providing an uplink and respective ground stations for providing a downlink for communication with the one or more further qualifying satellites;
- identifying an optimum execution set for imaging the location within the time window;
- recalculating an existing schedule of the satellites to provide an updated schedule that includes imaging the location using the optimum execution set;
- and
- transmitting the updated schedule to one or more of the satellites to image the location identified in the request.
A non-transitory computer readable storage medium with processor executable instructions stored thereon which, when executed by a processor in a schedule calculation module, causes cause the schedule calculation module to perform a method of managing a constellation of Earth observation satellites at ground control, each satellite comprising a synthetic aperture radar for imaging Earth, wherein the method comprises:
- receiving a request post-launch to image a location;
- identifying, from the constellation of satellites, qualifying satellites whose paths enable imaging of the location within a time window;
- for each qualifying satellite, identifying one or more execution sets, each execution set comprising the qualifying satellite, a ground station for providing an uplink and a ground station for providing a down link for communicating with the qualifying satellite, and at least one of the execution sets comprising:
- one or more further qualifying satellites for imaging the location using more than one satellite;
- and
- respective ground stations for providing an uplink and respective ground stations for providing a down link for communication with the one or more further qualifying satellites;
- identifying an optimum execution set for imaging the location within the time window;
- recalculating an existing schedule of the satellites to provide an updated schedule that includes imaging the location using the optimum execution set;
- and
- transmitting the updated schedule to one or more of the satellites to image the location identified in the request.
An Earth monitoring system comprising a satellite constellation, each satellite comprising a synthetic aperture radar for imaging Earth, and a schedule calculation module located on Earth, wherein the schedule calculation module is configured to:
- receive a request post-launch to image a location and identify, from the constellation of satellites, qualifying satellites whose paths enable imaging of the location within a time window;
- for each qualifying satellite, identify one or more execution sets, each execution set comprising the qualifying satellite, a ground station for providing an uplink and a ground station for providing a down link for communicating with the qualifying satellite, and at least one of the execution sets comprising:
- one or more further qualifying satellites for imaging the location using more than one satellite;
- and
- respective ground stations for providing an uplink and respective ground stations for providing a down link for communication with the one or more further qualifying satellites;
- identifying an optimum execution set for imaging the location within the time window;
- recalculate an existing schedule for the satellites in the constellation to provide an updated schedule that includes imaging the location using the optimum execution set, and transmit the updated schedule to one or more of the satellites to image the location identified in the request.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.