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.


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    Title :

    Solar Radiation Pressure Enabled Femtosatellite-Based Earth Remote Sensing


    Contributors:


    Publication date :

    2020-10-01


    Size :

    4069098 byte




    Type of media :

    Article (Journal)


    Type of material :

    Electronic Resource


    Language :

    English



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