Remote Sensing (Apr 2022)

A New Orbiting Deployable System for Small Satellite Observations for Ecology and Earth Observation

  • Elena Martellato,
  • Alice Maria Piccirillo,
  • Giampaolo Ferraioli,
  • Alessandra Rotundi,
  • Vincenzo Della Corte,
  • Pasquale Palumbo,
  • Emanuele Alcaras,
  • Luca Appolloni,
  • Giuseppe Aulicino,
  • Ivano Bertini,
  • Vincenzo Capozzi,
  • Elena Catucci,
  • Zelia Dionnet,
  • Pasquale Di Palma,
  • Flavio Esposito,
  • Emanuele Ferrentino,
  • Anna Innac,
  • Laura Inno,
  • Silvia Pennino,
  • Simona Saviano,
  • Giuseppina Tirimberio,
  • Stefania Campopiano,
  • Elena Chianese,
  • Pier Paolo Franzese,
  • Giannetta Fusco,
  • Salvatore Gaglione,
  • Agostino Iadicicco,
  • Ferdinando Nunziata,
  • Claudio Parente,
  • Vincenzo Piscopo,
  • Angelo Riccio,
  • Giovanni Fulvio Russo,
  • Enrico Zambianchi

DOI
https://doi.org/10.3390/rs14092066
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 14, no. 9
p. 2066

Abstract

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In this paper, we present several study cases focused on marine, oceanographic, and atmospheric environments, which would greatly benefit from the use of a deployable system for small satellite observations. As opposed to the large standard ones, small satellites have become an effective and affordable alternative access to space, owing to their lower costs, innovative design and technology, and higher revisiting times, when launched in a constellation configuration. One of the biggest challenges is created by the small satellite instrumentation working in the visible (VIS), infrared (IR), and microwave (MW) spectral ranges, for which the resolution of the acquired data depends on the physical dimension of the telescope and the antenna collecting the signal. In this respect, a deployable payload, fitting the limited size and mass imposed by the small satellite architecture, once unfolded in space, can reach performances similar to those of larger satellites. In this study, we show how ecology and Earth Observations can benefit from data acquired by small satellites, and how they can be further improved thanks to deployable payloads. We focus on DORA—Deployable Optics for Remote sensing Applications—in the VIS to TIR spectral range, and on a planned application in the MW spectral range, and we carry out a radiometric analysis to verify its performances for Earth Observation studies.

Keywords