The “Mailbox Gound Station” – A Procedure to Improve the Operational Key Requirements of Earth Observation Systems

Abstract

The performance of small satellite constellations used for security relevant Earth observation like crisis/catastrophe monitoring and reconnaissance are mainly characterized by the operational key requirements called system response time and image information age. Both parameters are driven by the satellite orbit, the number of satellites within the constellation and the number and location of the ground stations. Regular larger time gaps between imaging and data download to the ground station occur for such satellite systems and are unacceptable for both parameters in terms of security relevant Earth observation. This behaviour can be improved by increasing number of satellites or the usage of data relay satellites, however both solutions are expansive ones. Therefore a patent pending procedure was developed as a low cost possibility to improve the operational performance. The procedure is called “Mailbox Ground Station”.

The procedure uses a dedicated additional ground station, optimized located to the satellite constellation. Normally the polar region will be preferred for constellations with polar orbits. The Mailbox ground station will be used as an intermediate data download, storage and upload facility. The presentation will demonstrate and explain easily the Mailbox ground station system using a fictional satellite constellation used for Earth observation purposes.