Future trends and expected technological evolution - Satellite size
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Future trends and expected technological evolution - Satellite size
The first observation satellites, NOAA or SPOT, for instance, were in the 2 +/ − 1 tons range. As a matter of fact, there were no incentives to make them smaller as launchers (ARIANE for instance) performanced impressively to the LEO orbit. A dual launch would leave 5000 kg for any of the two passengers. It was then possible to launch, in addition to the main satellites, microsatellites on an ASAP platform.
More recently, the development of small launchers, sometimes based or derived from reconverted missiles has allowed or pushed the development of smaller spacecraft. A number of governmental or private projects (minisatellites) have been launched in the recent 2 or 3 years, and in continuation we foresee microsatellites (in the 100–120 kg range) with interesting performances. It is fair to note that microsatellites have been for 10 or more years providing some images of the Earth but their performances in terms of image quality or image production capacity have been rather poor. The new generation is expected to be far better and must be able to produce image suitable for science and applications.
This trend should not stop and with the coming of smaller satellites, i.e. cheaper satellites, constellations must be coming up.
The micro satellites have on their sides made technical progresses to an extend
that it is now possible to base operational system on micro satellites.
In the field of earth observation, several projects in the world are now relying on microsats.
It is fair to say that this possible use of microsats in highly advanced operational missions
has been made possible by a number of factors such as:
- Huge progresses in microsats performances such as in payload capability (mass, volume, power), attitude and orbit control, autonomy, telemetry data rate, agility,
- Performances in detectors,
- Performances in earth stations and in data processing
- But also in engineering and more precisely in deciding the margins we need for a good system.
Mini satellites are clearly considered able to provide service of excellent quality, and we could mention here the Jason or Pleiades satellites for instance, but the micro satellites were not considered up to recently as able to provide such a good services. But things are changing and we may now decide operational missions using micro satellites. [1]
References
[1] D.Hernandez
"Possible scenario for future mission in Earth observation".
