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 and a schedule calculation module located on Earth. The schedule calculation module 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.
Claims18
A method of managing a constellation of observation satellites in orbit around Earth, each satellite comprising a synthetic aperture radar for imaging Earth, the method comprising:
- regularly updating a satellite database of data comprising orbits and resources related to the satellites in the constellation, and a previous schedule for the satellites;
- regularly updating a channel database of data including availability and booking time of ground stations;
- receiving a new order defining at least one location to be imaged;
- recalculating execution sets of a satellite and ground stations that can image the at least one location;
- recalculating the previous schedule for the constellation of satellites based on the recalculated execution sets;
- updating ground station bookings according to the recalculated schedule;
- and
- uploading the recalculated schedule to one or more satellites of the constellation for execution.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.