Recent developments in electronics have pushed miniaturized satellites to the femto-scale, with masses between 10 and 100 g. Although femtosatellites have been proven as a feasible concept, most designs are limited in mission capacity and lifetime due to the lack of environmental protection and onboard propellant. In this article, a novel concept for femtosatellites for earth remote sensing is proposed. In particular, a swarm of femtosatellites are used as elements of a sparse array in orbit to receive radar echoes. They also feature active orbit control enabled by solar radiation pressure to extend their lifetime. A simple active orbit control algorithm has been demonstrated. A mission concept based on a sun-synchronous circular orbit is proposed to maximize the benefit for both earth remote sensing and active orbit control. A synthetic aperture radar mission has been used to characterize their performance.
Solar Radiation Pressure Enabled Femtosatellite-Based Earth Remote Sensing
IEEE Transactions on Aerospace and Electronic Systems ; 56 , 5 ; 3450-3461
2020-10-01
4069098 byte
Article (Journal)
Electronic Resource
English
A low-cost femtosatellite to enable distributed space missions
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