Study of Future Perspectives of Micro/Nanosatellites Constellations in the Earth Observation Market

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Study of future perspectives of micro/nanosatellites constellations in the Earth Observation market

Master’s thesis Master’s Degree in Aeronautical Engineering

REPORT

Mariona Costa Rabionet

June 2019

Supervisor of the TFM: Miquel Sureda Anfres

Co-Supervisior of TFM: Silvia Rodríguez Donaire

Study of future perspectives of micro/nanosatellites constellations in the Earth Observation market

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Study of future perspectives of micro/nanosatellites constellations in the Earth Observation market

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank the members of the Discoverer team to give me the opportunity to be part of their group and allow me to develop my master thesis in such an interesting topic.

Especially to Miquel who help me during all the process of development of the thesis and give me such wise pieces of advice and recommendations of which I have learned a lot not only in the technical point of view but also from the personal point of view.

And last but not least, I would also thank my family and friends for all the support that I have always receive from them and their patience no matter what the situation or decisions I am involved with.

Study of future perspectives of micro/nanosatellites constellations in the Earth Observation market

Abstract

The principal aim of this thesis is to study through qualitative and quantitative analysis, the future perspectives of the Micro/Nanosatellites constellations in the Earth observation market.

The objective of doing the qualitative analysis is to identify and study in detail several companies that are designing commercial Micro/Nano-satellite constellation to fulfil the needs of the Earth Observation market in order to have an overall perspective of where the sector is going.

Once the qualitative analysis has been made and the main interesting parameters of micro/nanosatellite constellation are found, we will run the quantitative analysis. With the performance of this analysis, we are able to determine if the expectations of the companies of the performance of the constellations are realistic or not. To determine the feasibility of these parameters, they will be compared with the results obtained by implementing a specific case in the SaVi software.

Study of future perspectives of micro/nanosatellites constellations in the Earth Observation market

Resum

L’objectiu principal d’aquesta tesi és estudiar a través d’anàlisi qualitativa i quantitativa les perspectives de futur de les constel·lacions micro / nano-satèl·lits en el mercat d’observació de la Terra.

L’objectiu de l’anàlisi qualitativa és identificar i estudiar en detall diverses empreses que estan dissenyant una constel·lació comercial de micro / nano-satèl·lits per satisfer les necessitats del mercat de l’Observació de la Terra per tenir una perspectiva general d’on va el sector.

Un cop realitzada l’anàlisi qualitativa i els principals paràmetres interessants de la constel·lació micro / nano-satèl·lit, s’explica l’anàlisi quantitativa. Amb la realització d’aquesta anàlisi, som capaços de determinar si les expectatives de les empreses sobre el rendiment de les constel·lacions són realistes o no. Per determinar la viabilitat d’aquests paràmetres, s’hi compararan amb el resultat obtingut mitjançant la implementació d’un cas específic al programari SaVi.

Study of future perspectives of micro/nanosatellites constellations in the Earth Observation market

Content Acknowledgements ...... 3 Abstract ...... 4 Resum ...... 5 DECLARATION OF HONOUR ...... 6 List of figures ...... 9 List of tables ...... 10 1. Introduction ...... 11 1.1. Aim ...... 11 1.2. Scope ...... 11 1.3. Requirements ...... 11 1.4. Justification ...... 12 2. State of the art ...... 16 2.1. New space concept ...... 16 2.2. Microsatellites and nanosatellites ...... 18 2.3. Remote sensing technology ...... 20 2.4. Earth Observation business ...... 25 2.5. Global trends in Small satellites ...... 27 2.5.1. Scenarios ...... 27 2.5.2. Drivers ...... 37 2.5.3. Overall evaluation ...... 39 3. Qualitative analysis ...... 40 3.1. Introduction ...... 40 3.2. Commercial companies ...... 40 1.1.1. Planet ...... 40 1.1.2. Astro Digital ...... 42 1.1.3. BlackSky ...... 43 1.1.4. Satellogic ...... 44 1.1.5. Zhuhai Orbita Control ...... 45 1.1.6. ICEYE ...... 46 1.1.7. Capella Space...... 47 1.1.8. Earth-i ...... 48 1.1.9. Axelspace ...... 49 1.1.10. Karten Space ...... 50 1.1.11. Hera Systems ...... 50

Study of future perspectives of micro/nanosatellites constellations in the Earth Observation market

1.1.12. SatRevolution ...... 51 1.2. Technical parameters of the constellations ...... 52 1.3. Results of the analysis ...... 57 4. Quantitative analysis ...... 64 4.1. Flock constellation introduction ...... 64 4.2. SAVI Simulation Results ...... 67 4.3. Results of the analysis ...... 82 5. Environmental, economic and safety aspects ...... 87 5.1. Environmental aspects ...... 87 5.2. Economic aspects ...... 87 5.3. Safety aspects ...... 87 6. Conclusions ...... 88 7. Bibliography ...... 91

Study of future perspectives of micro/nanosatellites constellations in the Earth Observation market

List of figures

Figure 1. Contribution to the U.S Government Space Budget.[1]...... 12 Figure 2. Earth Observation: Global Market Size. [2] ...... 13 Figure 3. Top 10 Sectors driving Earth observation Market Growth by 2020. [2] ...... 14 Figure 4. Start-up investment dynamics in Earth Observation (2013-2017) [3] ...... 14 Figure 5. Satellite launch history & market forecast of Nano/Microsatellites (1-50 kg) [4] ...... 15 Figure 6. Orbital regime altitudes. [6] ...... 18 Figure 7. CubeSat standard sizes [8] ...... 19 Figure 8. scheme of a passive remote sensor operation. [9] ...... 21 Figure 9. Example of a panchromatic image displayed as shades of grey. [10] ...... 21 Figure 10. Examples of a natural colour image and false colour image made by a multispectral sensor. [10] ...... 22 Figure 11. Example of Panchromatic sharpening. [10] ...... 22 Figure 12. Example of a Hyperspectral Data Product. [10] ...... 23 Figure 13. Example of a thermal image. [11] ...... 23 Figure 14. Scheme of an active remote sensor operation. [9] ...... 24 Figure 15. Example of SAR imagery.[10] ...... 25 Figure 16. Overall value-added chain for E ...... 27 Figure 17. The four future scenarios of the small satellite sector...... 28 Figure 18. Basic five-phase scenario process.[15] ...... 29 Figure 19. Drivers of the scenarios...... 38 Figure 20. Types of payloads of the satellites included in the analysis sample ...... 57 Figure 21. Evolution of the GSD of EO micro and nanosatellites...... 58 Figure 22. Evolution of the revisit time of EO micro and nanosatellites...... 59 Figure 23. Evolution of the planned of EO micro and nanosatellites constellations...... 60 Figure 24. Comparison between the Revisit time and the number of satellites of the constellation...... 61 Figure 25. GSD, the first year of launching, mass and revisit time of EO micro and nanosatellites ...... 63 Figure 26. Flock constellation and sensor specifications. [54] ...... 64 Figure 27. Flock constellation satellite operational status...... 66 Figure 28. The evolution of the Flock constellation ...... 67 Figure 29. Legend of the SaVi coverage visualization ...... 68 Figure 30. Evolution of the number of satellites of the Flock constellation ...... 79 Figure 31. Evolution of the revisit time of the Flock constellation ...... 80 Figure 32. Comparison between the revisit time and the number of satellites of the Flock constellation...... 81 Figure 33. Revisit time according to the number of satellites of the Flock constellation ...... 83

Study of future perspectives of micro/nanosatellites constellations in the Earth Observation market

List of tables

Table 1. Classification of the small satellites [6] ...... 18 Table 2. Drivers classification ...... 37 Table 3. Initial data for the qualitative analysis...... 54 Table 4. Classification of the initial data according to type of satellite and payload...... 56 Table 5. The flock constellation phases ...... 65 Table 6. The flock constellation coverage evolution ...... 69 Table 7. Revisit time of each of the Flock constellation phases...... 78 Table 8. Classification of the constellations considering their revisit time and the planned number of satellites...... 82 Table 9. Comparative between the company revisit time and the simulation revisit time...... 84 Table 10. Expected revisit time values of the constellations ...... 85 Table 11. Comparative between the planned revisit time and the expected revisit time ...... 85

Study of future perspectives of micro/nanosatellites constellations in the Earth Observation market

1. Introduction

In this section, the aim, the scope, the requirements and justification of this project are exposed

1.1. Aim

The aim of this project is to study through a qualitative and quantitative analysis of the future perspectives of the Micro/Nanosatellites constellations in the Earth Observation.

1.2. Scope

To fulfil the aim of this project and sheds light on the future perspectives of micro and nanosatellite constellations, it will be necessary first, to do some research on New space concept, remote sensing technology, identify the main characteristics of the micro and nanosatellites, define the situation of the Earth Observation business and also which are the global trends in small satellites.

Once the research has been done, we move to the qualitative analysis where several companies that are developing micro and Nano-constellations will be defined in detail as well as the main parameters of each of the constellations that they are manufacturing and operating. After the identification of the main technical characteristics of the constellations, it will be analysing each of them to determine the most important to have an overall perspective of where the sector is going.

Once we have extracted the conclusions of the qualitative analysis, we will run the quantitative analysis. With the performance of this analysis, we are going to be able to determine if the expectations of the companies of the performance of the constellations are realistic or not. To determine the feasibility of these parameters, they will be compared with the results obtained by implementing a specific case in the SaVi software.

With the conclusions of these two analyses, we will be able to have a picture of what to expect in the future from these companies that developing Micro and Nano-satellite constellations to provide data to fulfil the needs of the different Earth observation market segments.

1.3. Requirements

The study and analysis made during the entire project will be limited by the following requirements:

• Microsatellites and nanosatellites constellations.

Study of future perspectives of micro/nanosatellites constellations in the Earth Observation market

• Companies developing micro or nanosatellite constellations. • Satellites orbiting in VLEO and LEO. • All the satellite-based Earth Observation segment markets will take into account.

All the concepts, technology, markets and applications related with this type of satellites or orbits not listed before, have not included due to the need to reduce the variables of the study and make the analysis much more manageable.

1.4. Justification

Space industry has a full range of activities like space manufacturing, satellite operation and other consumer activities derived over the years from R&D to create value to the market by exploring, researching, managing and using the wide possibilities space can offer.

According to the IDA report [1], Fifty years ago, the United States and the Soviet Union were the only ones with a significant national space program, and just only a small number of commercial entities were involved in substantial space activities. Nowadays, the U.S Government space programs barely represent a quarter of global space budgets. In the next years, even as global space spending is expected to double, government budgets will make up less than a seventh of the total pie, the U.S Government contributing only 5 per cent of the total (figure 1).

Figure 1. Contribution to the U.S Government Space Budget.[1]

Traditionally, costs associated with the satellite development and operations have been extremely high, both at Low Earth and Geostationary Orbits (LEO and GEO). But due to the standardization of the platforms and the continued progress in technology miniaturizations are leading the change to more cheaper satellite development and launching as well as the time of manufacturing.

Study of future perspectives of micro/nanosatellites constellations in the Earth Observation market

This growing phenomenon responds to the development of the small and nanosatellites, Low-Earth Orbits and Medium-Earth Orbits (LEO/MEO) satellites constellations, a new map data services fuelling demand for satellite imagery and by the analysis with the end-to-end solutions.

Figure 2. Earth Observation: Global Market Size. [2]

As can be seen in figure 2, the Earth Observation (EO) market is divided into satellite based EO and aerial/UAV based mapping. The satellite-based EO categorized into two different segments, the EO-satellite upstream and the downstream.

1. Upstream: satellite manufacturing, ground-based systems, launch services and payload manufacturing. 2. Downstream: commercial imagery data and value-added services.

The growth of the upstream segment has a projected growth of 15.2% CAGR during the period 2017-2020, increasing from US$ 15.4 billion in 2017 to US$ 23.6 billion by 2020. Some of the leading drivers for the EO satellite upstream segment in the next three years are [1]:

3. Growing commercialization of the overall space value chain. 4. Innovative space-satellite-sensor-analytics start-ups. 5. Improved equity finance availability to start-ups/disruptive business models. 6. Collaborations between private and public sector stakeholders.

On the other hand, the downstream segment is expected to grow from US$28.3 Billion in 2017 to a projected US$ 42.3 Billion by 2020. This market growth is due to some factors such as the technological developments (new sensors including infrared spectrum, hyperspectral cameras, etc.), reducing the price of satellite imaging solutions, surging customer awareness, supportive government initiatives and growing applications of satellite imagery. In figure 2 are represented the EO market segments that will face a major growth by 2020.

Study of future perspectives of micro/nanosatellites constellations in the Earth Observation market

Figure 3. Top 10 Sectors driving Earth observation Market Growth by 2020. [2]

The EO sector is evolving to a closer approach to fulfil the user need and provide a more suitable solution. In Earlier years, the sector primarily focused on collecting imagery and selling it as a product to anyone wanting it. Nowadays, the focus is shifting to provide intelligence derived from those images. The recent technology and business innovations come from:

a) Major investments directed to the development of next-generation satellites; value- added products and integrated services (figure 4)

Figure 4. Start-up investment dynamics in Earth Observation (2013-2017) [3]

b) Small satellites and CubeSats are gaining popularity due to their lower cost and catering to the needs of temporal resolution (Figure 5)

Study of future perspectives of micro/nanosatellites constellations in the Earth Observation market

Figure 5. Satellite launch history & market forecast of Nano/Microsatellites (1-50 kg) [4]

All these data help to set up the main reasons why it is necessary to focus on the EO market and to the Nano and Microsatellite segment. With this study, we could have an overall perspective of these new EO platforms and determine if it is just part of a bubble or, just the opposite, a technology that will stay

Study of future perspectives of micro/nanosatellites constellations in the Earth Observation market

2. State of the art

2.1. New space concept

Recent years have seen a couple of great evolution patterns affecting the board space industry, in addition to a long-term trend of globalization that regards space economy as a whole: space commercialization and the emergence of “New Space”.

In the economic trends of small satellites report [5], they refer to this commercial use of space as the provision of goods or services capable of generating a commercial value by using equipment that is sent into Earth orbit or outer space. Some examples of commercial use of space include satellite navigation, satellite television and commercial satellite imagery. Operators of such services typically contract the manufacturing of satellites and their launch to private or private companies, which form an integral part of the space economy.

New space or also known as “entrepreneurial space” or “Alt.space”, have been used to describe an economic approach to space development that significantly diverges from the traditional approach the one used for example by NASA and mainstream space industry. The first person who introduces the term “New Space” was Rick Tumlinson, a co-founder of the Space Frontier Foundation. He defined it as:

“All people, businesses and organizations working on opening the space frontier to human settlement through economic development.”

New space is a compound term that indicates a movement, made by a group of new ventures that configure a developing private space industry, specifically by providing low-cost access to space exploiting recent technology innovations and advocating manned and non-manned spaceflight.

The main characteristics of New Space firms are the following ones:

• Low-cost focus: this type of company is strictly focused on minimizing every cluster of cost (hardware and software) that appears with the production process. This characteristic is the most distinctive trait of this type of these firms because involves every single element of the companies themselves. The main way they try to achieve this thin cost structure is pushing on economic of scales, which means that they pursue markets with higher usage than traditional ones.

• Future payoffs of cost reduction: they try to set a strategy to bet on cost reduction to be able to create bigger markets and payoff in the future. This is because they think that in the immediate future markets will grow.

• Incremental development: New Space firms follow the model of recent high-tech firms. Their goal is to build a limited-capability initial system that could generate profit and then pay for the incremental development necessary to go through the next steps. The main advantage of this model is that the young ventures can improve their product development lines and to expand furtherly as the market expands as well as the cash flow.

Study of future perspectives of micro/nanosatellites constellations in the Earth Observation market

• Consumer markets: New Space firms target consumer markets like space tourism or commercial satellite broadcast. Space commercial growth constitutes a fundamental mean to achieve economies of scale.

• Focus on operations: New Space companies are extremely focused on operational costs instead of overall performance. They accept a certain failure risk in order to achieve absolute cost control. For this type of companies scarify some kind of performance to implement cost reduction, reliability and low maintenance costs.

• Innovation: The use of new technologies is available thanks to cutting-edge electronic innovations and the large use of COTS (Commercial On The Shelf) materials combined to build robust space launch systems or satellites.

• Small dimensions: focused on lowering cost structures, these companies frequently are established and operate through lean, agile structures to minimize bureaucracy and overhead costs.

The fundamental character that involves every New Spaces actor is the strong focus on cost reduction and to hold a real control of cost structure. The appearance of these companies represents a point of discontinuity with the past (the mainstream space industry) because, before them, there has never been the cost reduction pressure.

The new space companies are focusing they business development and operations in the following three main regimes:

• Suborbital regime: is the regime where spacecraft reach the space at 100km altitude or higher but without reaching the speed to go into orbit. This regime is interesting for space tourism companies like Virgin Galactic, microgravity experiments and point-to- point earth travelling.

• Orbital regimes: is the regimes where spacecraft are able to reach different orbit types (figure 6). These orbits are: o HEO (High Earth Orbit): Geocentric orbits above the altitude of the geosynchronous orbit (35,786 km). o GSO (Geosynchronous Earth Orbit) and GEO (Geostationary Earth Orbit): are the orbits around the Earth matching Earth’s sidereal rotation period. All geostationary orbits are also geosynchronous, but not all geosynchronous orbits are geostationary. The geostationary stays exactly above the equator, whereas a geosynchronous orbit may swing north and south to cover more of the earth’s surface. Both complete one full orbit on Earth per sidereal day (relative to the stars, not the sun) o MEO (Medium Earth Orbit): geocentric orbit ranging in altitude from 2.000km to just below geosynchronous orbit at 35.786 km. Also known as an intermediate circular orbit. o LEO (Low Earth Orbit): geocentric orbits with altitudes from 160 to 2.000 km.

Study of future perspectives of micro/nanosatellites constellations in the Earth Observation market

All these orbital regimes are suitable for satellites, but small satellites are focused mainly on LEOs as they require low launch capabilities. These orbits are the development field for the space tourism industry, research applications and earth imaging.

Figure 6. Orbital regime altitudes. [6]

• Deep Space regime: a board concept including Lagrange points, Moon, Asteroids, Mars and beyond. It involves potential development in the future space tourism industry, for long-term human travelling in space and launching small satellites from ISS (International Space Station). Deep space could lead also to satellite servicing development, allowing refuelling, fixing and upgrading.

2.2. Microsatellites and nanosatellites

As we can see in the requirements, this study focuses only on microsatellites and nanosatellites. These two types of satellites are two different categories of the considered SmallSats. NASA [7] defines that a Small satellite is a spacecraft with a mass less than 180 kilograms and about the size of a large kitchen fridge. Small satellites can be classified in several categories according to their size. The classification proposed by NASA is the following one:

Table 1. Classification of the small satellites [6]

Category Weight (kg) Minisatellite From 100 to 180 Microsatellite From 10 to 100 Nanosatellite From 1 to 10 Picosatellite From 0.01 to 1 Femtosatellite From 0.001 to 0.01

Study of future perspectives of micro/nanosatellites constellations in the Earth Observation market

In this study will be focus on the microsatellite and nanosatellite. As you can see in table 1, microsatellites are all the satellites that weight more than 10 kg but less than 100 kg. In the other hand, nanosatellites are loosely defined as any satellite weighing less than 10 kg and they are widely known as CubeSats.

As it is defined by ALÉN Space [8], CubeSats can come in various sizes, but they are all based on the standard CubeSat unit, a cube-shaped structure measuring 10x10x10 cm with a mass between 1 and 1.33 kg. This is known as 1U. After the first few years, this modular unit was multiplied and larger nanosatellites are now common (1.5U, 2U, 3U or 6U). In figure 7, there is a schematic representation of these different CubeSat standard sizes.

Figure 7. CubeSat standard sizes [8]

All nanosatellites are developed under the CubeSat standards to guarantee ongoing and relatively inexpensive access to space, as well as a wide range of launch and space rocket options. CubeSat standardisation allows the possibility to use commercial electronic parts and chose among numerous technology suppliers, thereby considerably cutting the costs of CubeSat engineering and development projects in comparison with other types of satellites.

Apart from their size and cost, ALÉN’s article [8] identifies as the biggest advantage of a nanosatellite, the short time period required to develop each model. An average-sized or large satellite requires between 5 and 15 years to identify the need and place it in the right orbit under normal parameters. The main implication of this fact is that between the start and the end of the operation the needs of the mission could have changed, which can cause a diversion with the initial plans and they are no longer market suitable.

We must also consider that telecommunications technologies are constantly changing and being updated, which means that conventional satellites eventually end up operating with 15-years-old technologies. Therefore, update or make modifications according to a new market or technology opportunity, is somehow impossible.

However, this is not the case of nanosatellites, because it can take less than 8 months to detect a need and place them in orbit. In addition, it guarantees the redundancy and robustness of the nanosatellite constellation. The constellation can provide a system in which

Study of future perspectives of micro/nanosatellites constellations in the Earth Observation market

the concept of obsolescence or useful life are no longer a problem because they can be constantly renewed, ensuring a consistent state-of-the-art system. This constant renewal ensures that the constellation owner can always provide an optimum technological service. Each satellite within a constellation is renewed every 2-4 years, thereby guaranteeing that the operator will always have an optimised low-risk service due to the technological upgrades. [7]

Developing small satellites in accordance with CubeSat standards contributes to cutting costs in the research and technical phases. This contributes significantly to overcoming the entry to space, which has led to the increment of the popularity of the CubeSats since its introduction.

Depending on the specifications, a nanosatellite can be built and place in orbit for 500,000€. In the opposite side, the cost of a conventional satellite can be as high as 500 million euros. So, building and launching a nanosatellite represent only 0.1% of the building and launching conventional satellites. [7]

The reduced cost of nanosatellite does not mean that they are less reliable. With the right methodologies during both satellite design and testing phases, the success of a mission can be guaranteed, leaving only those factors that cannot be controlled such as launch failures, solar storms or the impact of a meteorite or piece of space junk.

In addition to the actual development of each satellite, launching a nanosatellite as part of a constellation allows for the risk involved in any space mission to be divided up amongst smaller segments. As a result, if a nanosatellite is lost or one of the units fails, it can be rapidly replaced within feasible time periods and at a reasonable cost. In contrast, the failure of a large- scale satellite may well jeopardise the entire mission.

There are currently multiple launch options for nanosatellites, including the shared use of government agency rockets, private company launchers or logistic link with the International Space Station (ISS). Due to CubeSat reduced volume and mass, it is easy to load onto spacecraft as well as a low-cost solution. Furthermore, the emergence of micro-launchers around the world, dedicated exclusively to placing a small satellite in orbit, has forced the market to lower launch prices.

Most of the cases, CubeSats are launched into a low altitude polar orbit. As a rule, nanosatellites are launched in low circular or elliptical orbits (altitudes of between 400 and 650 Km) and travel at around 8 Km per second. At this altitude and height, it takes them around 90 minutes to orbit the Earth, completing between 14 and 16 orbits a day. By orbiting closer to the Earth, they not only guarantee optimum conditions for land observation or communications but are also better protected from solar and cosmic radiation. [7]

2.3. Remote sensing technology

Micro and nanosatellites can use different types of payload technology such as video, multispectral sensor, hyperspectral sensor and SAR with the only purpose of collecting data. The multispectral, hyperspectral and video systems are known as passive remote sensors. In the other hand, SAR systems are included inside the category of active remote sensors.

Study of future perspectives of micro/nanosatellites constellations in the Earth Observation market

According to the definition of the Natural resources of Canada[9], the sun provides a very convenient source of energy for remote sensing. The sun can either reflected (figure 8) as it for visible wavelength, or absorbed and then re-emitted, as it is for thermal infrared wavelengths. Passive sensors are remote sensing systems which measure the energy that is naturally available. This kind of sensors can only be used to detect energy when the naturally occurring energy is available. For all reflected energy, this can only take place during the time when the sun is illuminating the Earth, during the night no reflected energy is available. In the other hand, the energy that is naturally emitted (such as thermal infrared) can be detected day or night, if the amount of energy is large enough to be recorded.

Figure 8. scheme of a passive remote sensor operation. [9]

The ones that measure the reflected energy are included in the category of optical imaging sensors which include panchromatic systems, multispectral systems and hyperspectral systems.

In a panchromatic system, the sensor is a monospectral channel detector that is sensitive to radiation within a broad wavelength range. The image is black and white or in grey scale (figure 9). Normally the spectral range of this type of sensors is between 430 and 720 nm, the spatial resolution is lower than 1 m, as it can be seen in figure 5, and is usually used for EO and reconnaissance applications.

Figure 9. Example of a panchromatic image displayed as shades of grey. [10]

Study of future perspectives of micro/nanosatellites constellations in the Earth Observation market

The multispectral sensor is a multichannel detector with a few spectral bands. Each channel is sensitive to radiation within a narrow wavelength band. The obtained image (figure 6) is an image that contains both the brightness and spectral (colour) information of the observed targets. In this case, the spectral range can include the visible band (V), the Near- infrared band (NIR) and the Short-wavelength infrared band (SWIR), the spatial resolution is up to 1-2 m, as it can be seen in figure 10. Depending on the working bands the sensor has different applications. These applications are:

- Red-green-Blue (True colour image): visual analysis. - Green-Red-NIR (False colour image): vegetation and camouflage detection. - Blue-NIR-SWIR (False colour image): visualizing water depth, vegetation coverage, soil moisture content and presence of fires.

Figure 10. Examples of a natural colour image and false colour image made by a multispectral sensor. [10]

The main difference between the panchromatic sensor and the multispectral one is the imaging resolution. The greater the number of spectrums, the lower the imaging resolution will be. This means that a panchromatic image usually presents a higher resolution than a multispectral image. The visual information of the multispectral data is combined with the spatial information of the panchromatic data, resulting in higher resolution colour product with the same resolution as the one provided by the panchromatic system. This combination is known as Panchromatic sharpening (figure 11).

Figure 11. Example of Panchromatic sharpening. [10]

With the hyperspectral imagery, it is possible to obtain a nearly continuous spectrum for each pixel in the image of a scene, extending the benefits of multi-spectral imagery (Figure

Study of future perspectives of micro/nanosatellites constellations in the Earth Observation market

12). For each pixel, a hyperspectral sensor acquires the light intensity for a large number (typically a few tens to several hundred) of continuous narrow spectral bands. The high spectral resolution of a hyperspectral imager allows the detections, identification and quantification of surface materials, as well as interpret biological and chemical processes. Hyperspectral EO is for now mainly limited to aerial imagery and scientific demonstration missions.

Figure 12. Example of a Hyperspectral Data Product. [10]

On the other hand, the sensors which capture the emitted energy (essentially measure the surface temperature and thermal properties of targets) are the Thermal IR imaging sensors. A thermal sensor typically operates in Middle-Wavelength InfraRed (MWIR) and Long-Wavelength InfraRed (LWIR) ranges of the electromagnetic spectrum. Any object with a temperature above zero can emit infrared radiation and produce a thermal image (Figure 13). A warm object emits more thermal energy than a cooler one. This type of sensors is especially useful in detecting volcanos and forest fires because the thermal image is independent of the lights in the scene and is available whether it is daytime or night-time. In this case, the resolution of this kind of sensors is lower than the other ones (Figure 13).

Figure 13. Example of a thermal image. [11]

Study of future perspectives of micro/nanosatellites constellations in the Earth Observation market

In the other hand, the natural resources of Canada describe the active sensors, like sensor that provide their own energy source for illumination. The sensor emits radiation which is directed toward the target to be investigated. The radiation reflected from that target is detected and measured by the sensor (figure 14). Advantages for active sensors include the ability to obtain measurements anytime, regardless of the time of the day or the season. Active sensors can be used for examining wavelengths that are not sufficiently provided by the sun, such as microwaves, or to better control the way a target is illuminated. However, active systems require the generation of a fairly amount of energy to adequately illuminate targets.

Figure 14. Scheme of an active remote sensor operation. [9]

According to ESA [10], the most common active sensor used for EO is the Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR). This instrument transmits electromagnetic pulses towards the Earth’s surface where they are reflected or scattered by the surface features. The instrument’s antenna can detect and record the return pulses. The intensity of the return pulse and the time it takes to arrive back at the antenna are used to generate SAR imagery.

The main advantage of this technology is that is not sensitive to the day/night cycle and most of the time to the meteorological conditions. The selected radio band impacts what is observed form the scene by influencing the level at which the incident radiation will backscatter. This kind of sensors is used for ship detection, oil spill detection, sea ice monitoring, forest monitoring, soil moisture, critical infrastructure, among others.

By using a technique known as SAR interferometry, highly accurate measurements of geophysical parameters such as surface topography, ground deformation and subsidence and glacier movements can be mad. In SAR interferometry, the phase of two or more complex radar images is compared that have been acquired from slightly different positions or at different times. Since the phase of each SAR image pixel contains range information that is accurate to a small fraction of the radar wavelength, it is possible to detect and measure path length difference with centimetric or even millimetric precision.

Study of future perspectives of micro/nanosatellites constellations in the Earth Observation market

Figure 15. Example of SAR imagery.[10]

2.4. Earth Observation business

First, it is important to clarify what it is the EO. EO consists of gathering information about the physical, chemical and biological systems of the planet using remote-sensing technologies and supplemented by Earth-surveying techniques to encompass the collection, analysis and presentation of the data. In general, EO is used to monitor and assess the status and changes of natural and built environments.

As it is written by Christophe Venet in the Report titled “Key trends in the European EO sector”[12], EO might well be the most complex of the three major space applications. It is used for civilians and military activities, and it involves public and private actors, and it is at the crossroads of scientific and commercial endeavours. Also, in this report, the author identifies the two most significant global trends in EO which are the focus on climate change issues and the growing commercialisation of the EO sector.

In it, the author identifies the space as one of the main tools for climate change policies. Because of their full coverage of the Earth’s surface, the frequent revisit time and the data continuity over time, the EO satellites are the ideal platform to study climate change. With all the equipment boarded in this type of satellites, it is possible to get the necessary environmental data to nourish the scientific models which are indispensable for the better understanding of the climate changes effects. No need to say, but also helping in the mitigation and management of the consequences of these effects.

According to Euroconsult, the number of civil and commercial EO satellites expected to launch between 2010 and 2019 will be more than double during the next decade. The forecasts show expansion from 135 to 280, which creates a surge in the supply of EO data to cover the increasing demand from the user base. Because of that, the satellite-manufacturers expect to generate $26 billion from revenues during the next 10 years. In 2009, commercial data sales from the high-resolution optical data which represent 82 per cent of the total commercial data sales, reached $1.1 billion. This all-time-high manufacturing and commercial data activity have led to the growth of the EO market at each step of the value chain (from increasing government investment to rising commercial data demand). With the growth, it has come opportunities and challenges for this still-maturing industry. [13]

Study of future perspectives of micro/nanosatellites constellations in the Earth Observation market

According to the report of eoVox [14], EO industry is focusing its research and development programs on innovative capabilities and services which will improve the life quality of the citizens as well as the efficiency of economic actors. The EO sector is considered the leader in the development, display and integration between science and technology and into policy and decision-making in the industry and other stakeholders.

With the commercial high resolution and multi-spectral satellite system provides an extraordinary EO data quality in a very short timescale after their acquisition. The satellites, the resulting images, the delivery systems and the value-added information providers and products are the components of a well-established industry.

EO provides added-value cost-effective solutions to business that have problems with the interaction between asset management, technical processes, systems and data management, rapid dissemination of data, results or services and distribution channels.

The EO Value Added Services (VAS) consists of the development and use of EO data processing and to exploit tools to provide optimized information for decision-makers. This industrial sector is basically composed of small and medium-sized enterprises (SME’s). All the players of the value chain supply with homogenous, continuous and global coverage of even the most remote and inaccessible areas of the world where there is not any previous information. With this type of technologies, access to this kind of information is fast, simple and cost- effective. The EO technologies are part of the Geo-information concept, where the user receives the information according to their needs and belonging to their precise place in space.

But one of the important questions here is, how we could add value to the EO information? Since the launch of the first civil imagery satellite (LANDSAT) in the early seventies, companies around the world have been developing products and services to simulate and serve the civilian market. From the image processing and geographical information systems, the companies have led to huge improvements in price and performance of tools through the innovation. At the same time, value-adding companies have continued with the development of new applications and generation of new business with the only purpose of serving growing markets. Nowadays, hundreds of companies are already involved in satellite EO service provision, including a diversity of markets far outstripping anything that could have been envisaged even ten years ago.

At the same time the market grows, it also becomes a more complex structure. This industry started as a stand-alone image processing tools, but the situation has evolved since including all the geo-information tools combining image acquisition, data processing, geographical information systems, as well as their integration with the navigation and communication technologies as shown in figure 16.

The business is complemented by a quick developing service industry that integrates, among others, digital mapping, included with mobile communications in order to deliver packaged services to the end-users.

Study of future perspectives of micro/nanosatellites constellations in the Earth Observation market

Figure 16. Overall value-added chain for E 2.5. Global trends in Small satellites

In this section, it can be found the global trends of the small satellite sector through the description of 4 different scenarios and their implications that can be feasible or not according to a numerous number of divers. This section will help to determine the best scenario to continue with the study. 2.5.1. Scenarios

This section contains the description of the scenarios and their implications, as well as, the used methodology.

2.5.1.1. Introduction

After defining the main ideas and concepts of this study, now it is time to define what might be expected from the Small satellite sector. A team of STPI (Science & Technology Policy institute) researches from IDA (Institute for Defense Analyses) placed in Washington has developed four different scenarios that could come to fruition in the next 10 to 15 years. The four scenarios that appear on their report [15], are the ones included in figure 2.

Study of future perspectives of micro/nanosatellites constellations in the Earth Observation market

Scenario 1 Two or more large smallsat constellation in LEO

Scenario 4 Scenario 2 On-orbit SMALL Smallsats near- servicing, SATELLITE assembly and parity with larger manufacturing SECTOR satellites in spacecraft remote sensing

Scenario 3 Usafe for satellite operations in LEO

Figure 17. The four future scenarios of the small satellite sector.

They introduce these four feasible scenarios for the 2027-2032 timeframe. The goal of defining these four scenarios is to use them as potential end states to identify drivers of developments in the small satellite sector.

Scenario 1 relate to the presence of broadband and imagery mega constellations of hundreds or even thousands of small satellites that work to achieve goals of interest in several economic sectors such as IoT, communications, agriculture, meteorology, among others.

For scenario 2, it is assumed that small satellites have almost the same capabilities as larger satellites, especially in the area of remote sensing and situational awareness (SA) which is referring to a range of space-based sensing activities, such as radio frequency mapping, automatic identification systems use, weather monitoring, space-based situational awareness (SSA), rendezvous and proximity operations and of course Automatic Dependent Surveillance- broadcast (ADS-B). As a result of these capabilities, a growing number of countries will achieve near-parity in remote sensing and EO with current spacefaring nations.

In scenario 3, LEO is degraded to the point that it has become unsafe to operate satellites in orbits between 500 and 1.200 km without risking a collision. Therefore, smallsats have become larger, more expensive, operate in different orbits than LEO, and LEO has lost its potential for commercialization.

For scenario 4, they assume that on-orbit servicing, assembly, and manufacturing (OSAM) of spacecraft is a reality, and multiple persistent platforms in LEO and GEO are being used by governments and the private sector for OSAM.

Study of future perspectives of micro/nanosatellites constellations in the Earth Observation market

To develop these four scenarios, they have used the scenario-based method which is explained below.

2.5.1.2. Scenario-based methodology

In their report[15], they define a scenario as a description of a possible future situation, including the path of development leading to that situation. Scenarios are not intended to represent a full description of the future, but rather to highlight central elements of a possible future and to draw attention to the key factors that would drive future developments. We also must be aware that many scenario analysts underline that scenarios are hypothetical constructs and it is imperative to not claim that the created scenarios represent reality.

To develop the four scenarios that are going to be described in the following sections, the STPI team adapted a generalized five-phase process (figure 18), proposed by a meta-analysis completed by the German Development Institute. The scenarios were developed following a hybrid approach in which they used both quantitative and qualitative information, excluding dramatic events, such as malicious acts by hostile actors.

Figure 18. Basic five-phase scenario process.[15]

To develop the four scenarios, the group of experts of STPI, just conducted the four phases of five that appear in figure 1 but in a different order. The order they follow was the following one:

- Phase 1: identify the scenario field (scope) as the small satellite ecosystem in place 10- 15 years from now (i.e. 2027-2032).

- Phase 4: generating the four scenarios.

- Phase 2 and 3: Key factors identification and analysis in where it is included all external and internal drivers that influence the direction of the small satellite ecosystem to the scenarios chosen.

After explaining the basis of the scenario-based methodology, it is time to describe in more detail each scenario and its implications.

Study of future perspectives of micro/nanosatellites constellations in the Earth Observation market

2.5.1.3. Scenario 1: Two or more large small satellites in LEO.

In scenario 1, at least two mega constellations of 100 or more small satellites each would be operating and be commercially successful. At least one communication constellation would be providing affordable global broadband internet and another one would be providing affordable, near-ubiquitous optical imagery that refreshes at least once per hour with relatively high ground resolution. In the other hand, this constellation would not provide true ubiquitous video coverage of the entire planet, but with advanced notice, satellites could use tip-and-cue approaches to provide real-time video coverage of small target areas.

Referring to the satellites in the communication constellation would weigh between 150-500 kg and would use either radio or laser communications to communicate with the ground or each other and have attitude control and propulsion systems on board.

In the other hand, the satellites in the optical imagery constellation would be 3-6U CubeSat or microsatellites platforms (weighing less than 100 kg). Some would have onboard data processing capabilities, and all processing would occur on the ground. Some of these satellites would have propulsion capabilities, and maybe also could manoeuvre and de-orbit; the ones that do not would be in lower orbits that reduce their orbital lifetimes.

These large LEO constellations of small satellites will co-exist with other ground, aerial, and space-based platforms referring to communications such as satellites in other orbits, terrestrial fibre, hot air balloons, solar internet planes and aeroplane networks, as well as imagery like satellites in other orbits, payloads on permanent space stations, traditional aerial methods, and new UAV approaches.

Having affordable global low-latency broadband internet and affordable ubiquitous imagery with high refresh rates would probably have several implications for global economic growth, social welfare and security.

According to the STPI analysts the affordable broadband through the large LEO constellation would provide the following implications:

a) Better access to healthcare, education, worker training, job seeking, price stabilization, etc. in remote areas, landlocked areas in developing countries and in polar regions.

b) Services to retail/hospitality, social inclusion, energy, military/government, backhaul and trunking, etc.

c) Connectivity to the mobility sectors, especially on shipping vessels and aeroplanes.

d) Low latency communications, complementing a terrestrial 5G architecture, enabling online gaming, decentralized banking, online auctions, and more ubiquitous use of teleconference tools.

e) A more resilient and vulnerable communications systems able to provide redundancy to terrestrial and GEO-based systems, but also more entry points for cyber-attacks.

Study of future perspectives of micro/nanosatellites constellations in the Earth Observation market

In the other hand, the implications of the affordable near-worldwide optical imagery that refreshes at least once per hour with high ground resolution and provide data with high-revisit rates in areas of difficult access, are the following ones:

a) Data to support geospatial imagery analytics market by providing a complete optical map of the globe on the order of every few minutes and maps in other areas of the spectrum on the order of every few hours.

b) Applications such as economic forecasting, agriculture monitoring, disaster management, weather prediction, resource management, shipping and aircraft monitoring, criminal monitoring, identification of hazard and bad actors, and security and warfighting that benefit from change-detection capabilities.

c) Better science through the development of new research platforms that provide a mechanism for scientific collaboration.

d) Innovation and new technologies for data access, data organization and storage, data processing, data downlink, and data visualization.

After detailing the implications of each of the two types of constellations, the specialists have also pointed out more implications that can be applied for both. These common implications are:

a) A world connected through large constellations would provoke the appearance of challenges associated with electromagnetic radio frequency (RF) spectrum allocation and interference. In particular, the Radio frequency interference (RFI) because it would have to be mitigated to allow future collaborations among operators. As LEO constellations proliferate, the spectrum will become an even more valuable resource, and new regulations would need it to manage and allocate RF and to avoid RFI.

b) The increased number of users would make it difficult for new providers to get licenses to transmit signal. For this, larger players would get larger because fewer players would control more limited natural resources. Simultaneously, the strain on the available spectrum would cause the creation of new policies to ensure spectrum remains available for everyone. These policies could be implemented to set time standards for effective use of the spectrum or relocation of areas that are currently reserved for government or education purposes.

c) Large constellations would lead to concerns that LEO could become unsafe due to overlaunch or unintentional RFI (Scenario 3 presented in Section C). To avoid this scenario, space actors could come together to develop an effective space situational awareness (SSA) system to adapt to constellations needs, debris mitigation guidelines tailored to large constellations, and effective space traffic management (STM) that enforces guidelines and rules of operation to help manage space traffic in the more crowded orbits.

d) As a result of the large number of launches that the constellations would necessitate, the launch vehicle market would be undergoing change as well. The increased launch rates to set up, replenish, and refresh large constellations would lead to a decrease in

Study of future perspectives of micro/nanosatellites constellations in the Earth Observation market

the price of rideshare launches as well as to developments in on-demand (fast and dedicated) small launchers to space.

e) The commercial success of the large constellations, combined with a reduced price of launch and higher launch rates, would lead to investment to improve performance and capabilities, to lower technology cost, and to develop low-cost manufacturing techniques. This, in turn, would lead to more actors putting payloads into space and controlling more capable small satellites, and ultimately, resulting in greater democratization of space.32 Not all actors in space would be responsible, and bad actors would be able to create debris, RFI, and other problems using smaller systems at a lower cost.

f) A growing number of satellites would provide both broadband and imagery. The co- existence of satellite broadband with imagery would help with downlink and storing the volumes of data generated by imagery satellites. Imagery downlink augmented by communications satellites from another satellite operator would lay the groundwork for federated satellite systems, that can share resources such as downlinks, and processing power.

g) Having these two types of constellations which mean to have a persistent, global internet and imagery coverage would be difficult for the governments to have control and could cause the weakening of the Global security.

2.5.1.4. Scenario 2: Small satellites near parity with larger satellites in Remote sensing.

In this scenario, remote sensing satellites would have similar capabilities as larger satellites, especially in three specific areas:

1. Ground resolution optical imagery could reach the 0.5-meter resolution. This high resolution would be possible due to the results of both incremental and breakthrough advances, such as three-dimensional (3D) printing techniques or aperture synthesis interferometry (ASI) from linked satellites.

2. Small satellites platform would routinely offer synthetic aperture radar (SAR), a capability limited for the moment to larger satellites.

3. Small satellites platforms would routinely offer affordable space-based situational awareness (SA). According to the Australia Space Academy, space situational awareness [16] can be defined as a knowledge of the energy and particle fluxes in near-Earth space (extends to an Earth-radius of at least 100.000km), including the past, present and future state of these components.

Because of this technology near-parity and its global commercial availability, a growing number of countries would have acquired the capacity for space-based remote sensing. But this does not mean that all the countries will have the same capabilities, but the enough to be available to meet independently at an affordable cost their societal and national security needs.

Study of future perspectives of micro/nanosatellites constellations in the Earth Observation market

In general, the Government will have the opportunity to acquire space capabilities related to remote sensing in several different ways:

1. Building for the country the capabilities by for example purchasing the first small satellite from an international vendor, building future satellites and all the associated infrastructure domestically.

2. Buying small satellites from commercial firms to operate them and collect and analyse the data by themselves.

3. Buying data or data products from global providers.

In this case, the STPI team identify the following implications of this second scenario:

a) Small satellites will become commoditized in the same way as personal computers and laptops. This will cause that despite having high-end small satellites with exquisite capability for niche applications, there would be also small satellite with low-end generic capabilities that can be assembled and deployed inexpensively.

b) The combination of different types of remote sensing data into integrated data analytic products will probably lead to the global proliferation of applications previously available only to large commercial operators or to governments of spacefaring nations.

c) Governments probably will lose advantage because the private sector would be the main supplier of small satellites technologies, and private products and services would be available to all entities, public or private. This will cause that the traditional spacefaring nations like the United States, would be at a disadvantage because they will lose their monopoly over the space government regime. This could happen because more countries will protect their assets in LEO and become active participants in developing global governance regimes related to spectrum allocation, collision avoidance and debris mitigation.

2.5.1.5. Scenario 3: Unsafe for satellites to operate in LEO.

This scenario contemplates the fact that orbits between 500 and 1,200 km could become unsafe to operate satellite without risk of collision. This would be the result of a large number of active and inactive objects in orbital bands around 800 and 1100 km, or of RFI in LEO. In this case, the only available orbits for non-risk-tolerant missions would either be VLEO between 160 to 500 km altitude or orbits higher than 1200km.

As in the other two scenarios, there are several implications or conclusions that it must consider if this scenario happens in the future. The implications for this scenario are related to:

a) Commercial activity in LEO would be risky. These would lead to a stop in the funding activities related to LEO commercialization because the LEO will no longer be profitable for venture capitalists and other founders due to activities such as EO,

Study of future perspectives of micro/nanosatellites constellations in the Earth Observation market

remote sensing, and broadband connectivity and telephony will no longer feasible at low cost. b) LEO would be the domain of primarily low-cost educational and short-term data collection small satellites as they might be the only satellites able to tolerate the high risk of collisions in these orbits. Because of that, commercial communications and imaging activities would be performed by a combination of satellites in orbits higher than 1200 kilometres, by satellites in VLEO, by airborne platforms in lower altitudes or through terrestrial means. c) Specifically, for imagery, to determine the most suitable platform for each specific application it will be necessary a trade-off between resolution, ubiquity, revisit times and field of view. d) Moving satellites to higher orbits or to very low earth orbits would make them larger and more expensive to operate. Small satellites in higher orbits would require radiation hardening, more power and higher launch costs. In the other hand, small satellites in very low orbit would need continual thrusting, or continuous replenishment. Due to this cost increment, the private sector would not be a major in LEO other than providing assets to governments. e) The satellites will also require carrying optical payloads to assist in navigation and spacecraft, and rocket shielding would need to be stronger. Launchers would be evolving to accommodate different orbits and larger payloads. f) Many of the current predicted LEO activities would be disappearing and new activities will appear. Some examples of this new activities are:

• SSA (Space Situational Awareness) and STM (Space Traffic Management) activities would gain momentum partly to preserve Medium Earth Orbit (MEO) and Geosynchronous Orbit (GEO). These two orbits would be the most precious ones to avoid a substantial amount of debris.

• Debris removal would be the major activity in LEO. On technology front, there would be more investment in sensor technologies, collision avoidance hardware and software, and other technologies related to orbit clean up.

• Interest in on-orbit repair, servicing and refuelling services in orbits higher than 1200 km.

• New technologies relevant to operations in dangerous orbits would be brought into use. They could include self-healing materials, lightweight and efficient aid sensing technologies, miniaturized and efficient propulsion systems and spacecraft shielding.

Study of future perspectives of micro/nanosatellites constellations in the Earth Observation market

2.5.1.6. Scenario 3: On-orbiting servicing, assembly and manufacturing of spacecraft a reality.

Scenario 3 consists of multiple spacecraft placed into LEO and GEO orbit for the purpose of on-orbit servicing, assembly and manufacturing (OSAM). These spacecraft would include large, persistent platforms for satellites and spacecraft production as well as mobile small satellites for servicing other satellites. The aim of the platforms and mobile small satellites would be:

1. Servicing of existing satellites, including maintenance, refuelling, subsystems upgrades, and payload substitution. These services would carry out by free-flying small satellites that travel to meet spacecraft in orbit and act as robotic technicians.

2. Assembly of new satellites from components manufactured terrestrially. Production would be done on large-scale persistent platforms facilitated by modular elements and autonomous systems.

3. Manufacturing of certain types of components, payloads and satellite structures, such as panels or antennas. This process would encompass additive manufacturing (3D printing) along with more conventional welding and chemical techniques. Completed elements would be used in the assembly process.

Operators of OSAM will take advantage of the capabilities of the smallsat sector by deploying small satellites for a wide variety of missions in LEO constellations and deep space. Small satellites could play an important role in providing on-orbit servicing to another spacecraft. But the direct impact of OSAM will be in large spacecraft built and service on-orbit.

In this case, according to the report of STPI researchers, the implications can be divided into 4 different areas. These four areas are satellite production, technology demonstration and Earth science, deep space exploration and finally the small satellite market. For the purpose of this study, only the implications of satellite production and small satellite market.

Referring to the implications for satellite production, we could say that:

a) The satellite would be produced on-orbit. Satellites could be designed, manufactured and assembled on-orbit with larger dimensions than terrestrial production, without regard for size or shape limitations imposed by launch vehicle fairings, unlocking new proficiencies in applications such as communications and EO. Routine maintenance, upgrades and refuelling offered via on-orbit servicing could lengthen a satellite’s lifespan and adapt payloads for new missions.

b) For large satellites, the net effect of OSAM would be to reduce production costs, increase revenues, and bolster performance. Operators would stand to benefit from employing large satellites with exquisite capabilities. For EO a satellite built on-orbit with an enormous aperture could gather high accuracy, high-resolution images for intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance applications for missions of national defence and homeland security.

Study of future perspectives of micro/nanosatellites constellations in the Earth Observation market

c) OSAM would offer operators flexibility in choosing the right-sized asset for a given application. An operator’s choice to utilize a constellation of small satellites, a constellation of large satellites, or a singular capable large satellite would depend on the specific application and for many applications, small satellites and large satellites would compete directly.

For example, for EO, constellations that could provide high revisit times for tracking hourly changes, the resolution is limited by their small footprint. So large satellites are preferred if the resolution is paramount or onboard data processing is required, but if the aim is to be ubiquitous in geographic coverage the small satellites are the best option.

d) The high capital costs of developing and operating a production platform would far outweigh the marginal revenue to be made in on-orbit assembly and manufacturing of small satellites. Building small satellites on-orbit would become affordable through one of two models:

• First model: High-volume production of identical small satellites for large constellations.

• Second model: Persistent platforms to build small satellites as a secondary output to large satellites.

The implications of this fourth scenario for the small satellite market are the following ones:

a) OSAM would offer to the satellite industry flexibility in designing, building, and deploying satellites best suited to a given application as large satellites become cost competitive and hosted payload platforms became a norm. Large satellites and hosted platforms probably will displace small satellites for certain applications. b) Due to efficient deployment and reduced production costs, small satellites would find their most prominent applications in communications and EO, implemented as large constellations. Despite competition from larger counterparts, the on-orbit assembly would unlock considerable potential for market growth in these areas.

c) The availability of on-orbit servicing and assembly would have further implications on the private launch market. Small satellites launchers would become less competitive, but less demanded for transport of payloads modules to host platforms, and compact launch vehicles. Private launch companies will provide new vehicles for efficient packaging and bulk transport would emerge as the companies shift their focus to running materials supply missions.

d) Public and private R&D efforts into some areas of small satellites technology would become obsolete given less pressure to employ small satellites in every application. But on the other hand, other areas of technology would become increasingly vital, such as miniaturizing propulsion systems for use on small satellites to enable deployment from

Study of future perspectives of micro/nanosatellites constellations in the Earth Observation market

OSAM platforms. These trends would be accompanied by increased attention on developing technologies to facilitate and unlock new capabilities in OSAM.

2.5.2. Drivers

After analysing the four scenarios, STPI researchers could identify 62 drivers. A driver can be defined as a resource, process of condition that is vital for the continued success and growth of a sector, in this case, the small satellite sector and the four scenarios related to it.

The divers have been divided into four different categories:

1. Market demand: demand for LEO-based services is the most powerful driver in the small satellite sector and motivate other drivers such as availability of funding, development of new technology, low-cost approaches and infrastructure.

2. Access to space: it is not only the cost of launch but also the availability of reliable launch options that drives whether the four scenarios can come to fruition in the timeframe of interest.

3. Competing alternatives: alternatives such as terrestrial and airborne platforms, as well as incremental and breakthrough innovations in large satellite, drive the relative value proposition offered by small satellites and can either make or obviate the case for small satellites.

4. Government policies: related to spectrum allocation, RFI, protectionism/mercantilism, debris mitigation standards, on-orbit regulation, and space traffic management are driving (both positively and negatively) private sector interest in the small satellite ecosystem.

In figure 19, there are the most important drivers related to demand, technology, Low- cost approaches, infrastructure, launch and competing alternatives. The funding and government policies have not included in the table, because are irrelevant for our study, which focuses on market opportunities and technology advancements.

For the creation of figure 19, the drivers have been punctuated from -3 to 3 according to their impact in each scenario. In table 1, it can be found the drivers classification.

Table 2. Drivers classification

Impact Negative None positive Category High Medium Low None Low Medium high Punctuation -3 -2 1 0 1 2 3

Study of future perspectives of micro/nanosatellites constellations in the Earth Observation market

Figure 19. Drivers of the scenarios.

Study of future perspectives of micro/nanosatellites constellations in the Earth Observation market

2.5.3. Overall evaluation

After describing each of the four scenarios and their implications and introducing the drivers that could impact negatively or positively to the success of each of the scenarios, now it is time to determine which scenarios are more feasible and which are not.

According to the overall assessment of the STPI researchers [15], they believe that the probability of scenario 1, which consists on at least two large constellations of 100 or more satellites, coming to fruition is high. The main reason is the demand for broadband and imagery exists and is growing, the required technology is available or is expected to be in the near future and the breakthrough of the infrastructure will be minimal. Also, there are several rideshare options for launch, further availability from large launchers and on-demand launch is expected in the next decade. And finally, while the price of small satellite launch is decreasing, or for at least broadband constellations, lack of reduction in price is not a deal-breaker for companies because they are making their business cases using today’s launch prices rather than assuming a reduction in the future.

Scenario 2, which refers to the near parity with larger satellites in remote sensing, is also likely to be feasible. There are incremental advances in all three areas considered (ground resolution, SAR and SA), and a falling in costs at every step of the small satellite supply chain. This supply chain is composed of three segments: upstream actors and institutions that are engaged in manufacturing and system integration of smallsats, midstream organizations which operate and launch the small satellites and finally the downstream actors and organizations that analyse and package data streams into useful insights and business intelligence.

It is unlikely that scenario 3 (unsafe to operate in LEO) would come to fruition, although near misses with strategic assets in space may lead to restrictions on operations in certain valuable orbits. There is un underway effort from both technologies and policy perspective to develop propulsion capabilities for small satellites to improve SSA systems and to develop international guidelines for the long-term sustainability to outer space activities.

And finally, Scenario 4 (OSAM of spacecraft is a reality) is unrealistic in the timeframe of the study, not because of there are limitations in technology but because the low investment in this area. OSAM capabilities are currently in the first stages of research, and it needs it a significant increase in R&D investment to see OSAM platforms emerge in GEO and LEO in the near future. Because there is no indication that investment levels will change drastically soon, the future investment must come from private sector satellite manufacturers that wish to reduce the cost or increase the revenues by assembling or enhancing large satellites in space.

To sum up, the two feasible scenarios that can be successful in 10-15 years from now, are scenario 1 and scenario 2 that somehow are related to each other.

The following section of this study will be focus on analysing in a qualitative way the plans of launching nanosatellites and microsatellites constellations of several private companies in order to compare it with the results exposed in this section extracted from the STPI report [15].

Study of future perspectives of micro/nanosatellites constellations in the Earth Observation market

3. Qualitative analysis

3.1. Introduction

As we have seen in the previous section, there are two feasible scenarios that can be successful in 10-15 years. The first scenario is related to the presence of broadband and imagery mega constellations or even thousands of small satellites. And the other one refers to the fact that in the future small satellites will have almost the same capabilities as larger satellites, especially in the area of remote sensing.

This section is dedicated to studying in detail of several companies that are designing or willing to design commercial constellations of micro and nanosatellites to fulfil the needs of the EO market to have an overall perspective of where the sector is going.

The first step of this qualitative analysis is to determine which companies are going to be part of our study. The companies have been chosen from a New Space companies’ database (Annex 1). To choose them, we kept in mind the requirements exposed in the first section of this report. The companies must accomplish the following three requirements:

• 5 companies from the United States: Planet, Astro digital, BlackSky, Capella Space and Hera Systems. • 1 company from Argentina: Satellogic. • 1 Chinese company: Zhuhai Orbita Control. • 1 company of Finland: ICEYE • 1 company from the United Kingdom: Earth-i • 1 Japanese company: Axelspace. • 1 Spanish company: Karten space • 1 Company from Poland: SATRevolution

3.2. Commercial companies

1.1.1. Planet

Planet [5] was founded in 2010 by former NASA scientists Will Marshall, Robbie Schingler and Chris Boshuiez. Planet is a San Francisco based company that designs, and manufacture CubeSats for EO and analytics purposes and Its primary mission are Dove and Flock. The company acquired BlackBridge in 2015, earning its constellation of 5 satellites called RapidEye.

Study of future perspectives of micro/nanosatellites constellations in the Earth Observation market

Dove constellation provided complete Earth imagery at 3-5m optical resolution and it is composed by Dove CubeSats that are specifically designed for EO to scan Earth surface and sending data to ground stations. The aim of the Dove constellation was a technology demonstration nanosatellites for remote sensing purposes based on 3-U CubeSat standard built to be a low-cost imaging satellite with non-space, COTS components and to show that a constrained 3-U CubeSat could host a camera payload and also demonstrate the ability to design, produce and operate satellites on short schedules.

In the other hand, The Flock earth observing constellation consists of 3-U CubeSats. Those satellites feature a standard RGB imaging system, but five of them were fitted with experimental systems working in different optical spectral bands. Each Flock satellite carries a telescope and a frame CCD camera.

Small satellites size and low production costs allow the firm to quickly prototype new designs and avoid potential assets lost. The images gathered by such constellation can be exploited for climate monitoring, crop yield prediction, urban planning, and disaster response.

While most Earth-imaging companies usually do not build their own satellites, Planet is vertically integrated, as it designs and manufactures satellites completely in-house. They work this way to be able to iterate and compound the latest technology available into their own small satellite. The integration makes the company capable of responding to customer needs quickly.

The company offers the following services:

• Monitoring programs through satellite imagery available worldwide.

• Global base maps created with spatially accurate mosaics of up-to-date high-resolution imagery, for use as a background reference layer in GIS, SDIs, customer and general mapping.

• Planet platform accessible on the web for business purposes.

• Custom imagery by purchasing requested data.

And with these four services the company tries to cover the following range of market segments:

• Agriculture and farming: monitoring programs to provide useful information to identify changes in crops and soil. It is available through the cloud-based platform, enabling farmers to make smarter decisions, optimize inputs, increase profitability, and enhance sustainable farm practices.

• Defence and intelligence: Giving situational awareness for fast decision making. It allows having a glimpse of dispersed and disconnected locations.

• Finance and business intelligence: Progress Tracking and Competitive intelligence to make well-informed decisions with global situational awareness plus competitive intelligence. The use of up-to-date data allows informing supply chain management and progress tracking.

Study of future perspectives of micro/nanosatellites constellations in the Earth Observation market

• Civil government: Understanding population growth, Monitor Natural Disasters, Heighten Reginal Awareness to enhance better use of land.

• Energy and infrastructure: To implement the regulation, enforcement, pipeline monitoring, construction and encroachment.

• Forestry: Forest health monitoring, illegal logging tracking and forestry operations planning.

1.1.2. Astro Digital

Astro Digital [5] is a US start-up that owns and operates different satellites with Earth- imagery purposes. The company is aimed to enable so-called “big-data” analytics from space by monitoring Earth from space with open data, a multispectral satellite constellation and software for imagery analysis and distribution. The imagery from their constellations runs directly into the Astro Digital’s pipeline where it’s live processed and accessible via API endpoints.

The main industries that Astro Digital serves are the following ones:

• Agriculture: to understand the current stage of crop growth, comparing it to previous weeks and producing yield estimations based on growth rates. • Disaster management: to monitor the progression of flood waters and wildfire, captures snapshots of tornado and earthquake damage, assess impact or hurricane winds and storm surge. • Forest management: to get images of large areas at high frequency in order to monitor variations in the forest, identify regions damaged by weather or disease, delineate boundaries between forest and protected habitats and identify potential illegal activity. • Urban development: to map urban landscapes, detect changes to infrastructure, analyse population density, perform selection analysis for proposed development areas, and monitor the environmental impact of regional developments. • Business intelligence: to analyse and track global economy, as its imagery, for instance, shows the rapid construction of infrastructure, captures frequent shots of open pit mines and resource stockpiles, compares historical data to current conditions.

To address this wide range of economic activities, the firm takes advantage of two different satellite constellations:

• Landmapper-HD: a constellation of 20 satellites imaging all agricultural land, globally every 3-4 days, capturing high-resolution daily shots of Earth areas. With a 2.5 meters resolution, the spacecraft weighs 20kg and is about the size of a small microwave.

• Landmapper-BC: a constellation of 10 satellites that complement the HD sensor constellation of Landmapper-HD. It captures images of the world at 22 meters resolution, and the spacecraft weighs 10kg.

Study of future perspectives of micro/nanosatellites constellations in the Earth Observation market

The company also takes advantage of open data, mainly from two different satellite systems:

• Landsat-8: a US Geological Survey traditional and high-weighted satellite, used from drought monitoring to regional planning, from forest management to geological mapping, has diverse spectral bands.

• Sentinel program: Sentinel-2 consists of 2 identical satellites with multi-spectral coverage tuned for agriculture and forest monitoring, natural disaster management, soil and water cover sensing, and climate change monitoring. It is a free and open data source where the satellites are operated by the European Space Agency as part of the Copernicus Program.

1.1.3. BlackSky

BlackSky [5] is a start-up company with venture capital financial backing that is based in Seattle and is using Spaceflight services to build the satellites and hunt launch opportunities. BlackSky does not build their satellites bit is a global intelligence platform relying on data from third-party nanosatellites and aimed at delivering timely, relevant, and actionable information that is valuable.

The company owns a multi-source imagery catalogue that comes from the 10 high- resolution satellites and allows customers to pick current images or monitor areas of interest. To do that, BlackSky delivers geo-spatial insights about an area or topic of interest through the capabilities of machine learning, predictive algorithms, and natural language processing. The firm synthesizes data from a wide range of sources including social media, news, radio communications and of course satellites to create a unique insightful information data set. BlackSky’s business model is different from many small satellites firms because it is focused on merging satellite imagery with real-time data.

The company is planning to put in orbit a constellation of roughly 60 satellites providing frequent revisit rates over 95% of the Earth’s human population and revisiting most spots 40 and 70 times per day. The aim of the constellation is to provide colour imagery at a resolution of one meter per pixel and to have an onboard propulsion system capable of a 3-year orbital life.

The full constellation of 60 satellites named BlackSky Global will be replaced every three years. Apart from the colour imagery, the satellites would also be able to provide video as well at a speed of one frame per second. Each satellite constellation will have a mass of 55 kilograms and designed for a three-year mission life at an altitude of 450 kilometres. Having obsolescence in mind, the lifespan of each satellite offers enough time to provide services and allowing the company to perform technology update to the constellation on a regular basis.

BlackSky Global is focusing on customers playing in markets such as agriculture, forestry, government, finance, energy and more. The company is also creating a Web-scale software platform for customers to request, receive and interact with its satellite imagery online.

Study of future perspectives of micro/nanosatellites constellations in the Earth Observation market

1.1.4. Satellogic

Satellogic [5] is an Argentinian space start-up, founded by the actual CEO Emiliano Kargieman. The company’s aim is to launch a network of hundreds of satellites in Low Earth Orbit, allowing customers to get high-resolution and real-time images of Earth Spots. Satellogic satellites are built with newer electronics technology and come with the size of desktop computer hard drive, and they allow customers to be able to get images in nearly five minutes.

The firm plans to manufacture and deploy into orbit a constellation of around 300 EO satellites to provide real-time Earth imagery. Satellogic owns a manufacturing facility in Uruguay enabling the potential to build several dozen satellites per year. Each satellite will approximately weight 35 kilograms and will perform one-meter multispectral imaging.

It requires years to complete the entire constellation of small satellites but in company’s plans, it would allow revisiting times of around 5 minutes anywhere on the planet for one-meter resolution multi-spectral imaging. Satellogic is also building a network of ground stations to support the large steam of data that the constellation will generate. The company is intended to use a combination of owned ground stations and third-party stations to build a network of more than 20 sites worldwide: two stations are operational up to date. The company is also developing downstream analytics platforms to let customers access data without having to develop their own image processing capabilities.

Satellogic is focussing on the following specific technology achievements:

• Real-time imagery: to view any point on earth more frequently reducing revisit times from days to a matter of minutes.

• Commercial-grade resolution: to allow ground sampling distance of fewer than 2 meters which is comparable with more expensive and bigger satellites.

• Affordable, cutting-edge technology, through agile processes, rapid development cycles, using the latest commercial components, combined with proprietary patent- pending technology.

• Lightweight, reducing weight from over a ton to less than 100 pounds.

The firm is fully concentrated to drive a consistent Big Data stream from Space, where it’s generated, into a fundamental part of daily decision making for government, organizations, industries and individuals. The main applications that will be served are Agriculture, pipeline monitoring, critical infrastructure monitoring, disaster response, illegal logging, border patrol, port security and business intelligence.

Study of future perspectives of micro/nanosatellites constellations in the Earth Observation market

1.1.5. Zhuhai Orbita Control

Zhuhai Orbita Aerospace Science & Technology Co. Ltd, formerly know Zhuhai Orbital Control Engineering Co., Ltd, [17] was founded in March 2000 in Zhuhai, China. The company has been recognized as the leader in the design of high-reliability SOC/SIP chips and, the pioneer for constructing commercial EO satellite constellation. With the commercial EO satellite constellation, they want to provide to the end-users, low cost and more efficient satellite data and services from the well configured remote sensing nanosatellite constellation.

The Zhuhai constellation named Zhuhai-1 is a combined constellation because is composed by sub constellations with different payloads on board: OVS-1, OVS-2 and OHS-2.

The OVS- 1 [18] EO satellites are the two satellites that will constitute the video component prototype. Both satellites feature a high-resolution video system capable of capturing 20 frames per second and reaching a 1.98-meter ground resolution. The satellites carry each a linear transponder payload for CAMSAT, which are called CAS 4A and CAS 4B respectively.

The OVS-2 [19] EO satellites are the ten video component of the Zhuhai-1 EO system and are the improved versions of the prototype OVS-1 satellites. The satellites feature a high- resolution video system for EO with a spatial resolution of 0.9m and a swath width of 22.5km. These satellites are able to capture video sequences of 120 seconds. In the push-broom mode, it can capture images of 2500 km length.

And finally, the OHS-2[20] EO satellites are the hyperspectral component of the constellation. These satellites have a ground resolution of 10m and a swath width of 150km. The spectral resolution of this hyperspectral resolution is 2.5nm. Using the push-broom mode they are able to capture images of 150 km x 2500 km.

With the launching of the Zhuhai-1, the company will provide data services to the following markets [21]:

• Environment: atmosphere monitoring and water monitoring.

• Ocean: red tide monitoring, fish speculation, coast monitoring and oil pollution monitoring.

• Ecology: vegetation and land cover mapping, land use dynamic monitoring and vegetation growth monitoring.

• Forest: Resource topic mapping, biomass and carbon stocks and forest fire prevention.

• Agriculture: Crop yield estimation, pest monitoring, crop classification, crop growth monitoring.

Study of future perspectives of micro/nanosatellites constellations in the Earth Observation market

1.1.6. ICEYE

Iceye [5] is a company that provides a satellite-based service to give worldwide access to near-real-time imagery from space and based on Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) technology. Founded in 2012 and based in Finland, they are planning to launch tens of satellites to reduce the response time from days to minutes, by implementing miniaturization and industrial manufacturing to the field of radar imaging. The company mainly focus to provide service to the following markets:

• Nature-related activities: monitoring illegal fishing, oil spills, storm damage and forest growth.

• Agriculture: monitoring corps growth, storm damages, pest movements and assist in efficient harvest.

• Planetary exploration: mapping other planets for resources and ensures exploration safety.

• Logistics: monitoring port or storage activity, sea ice and icebergs, track pirate vessels and view highway activity.

• Disaster relief: monitoring flood damage, receive real-time mapping for aid activities and conduct maritime search and rescue activity.

The firm believes strongly that at least 76% of the globe is un-imageable with traditional optical systems at any moment. This is the reason why they are fully focused in exploiting the most recent developments in mobile technology to squeeze radar sensors into nanosatellites to achieve 20 times lighter and 100 times less costly satellites that the traditional ones. They believe that if they shape the technology around the latest off-the-shelf electronics, they can obtain a real advantage in terms of low component prices and fast technology update cycle. The company’s satellites are designed to operate in swarms, achieving reliability and quick access to anywhere worldwide.

The constellation is going to be deployed in two phases. The first phase consists of launching 5 to 10 satellites, which would be capable of revisits in a matter of hours. The second phase the constellation would be larger, between 30 to 50 satellites, bringing revisit rates down under an hour, possibly to half an hour. Each of the satellite of the constellation is expected to have a mass of less than 100kg. ICEYE will implement radar technology because they believe that compared to optical EO system enables satellites to see through weather and keep collection when outside sunlight areas.

Study of future perspectives of micro/nanosatellites constellations in the Earth Observation market

1.1.7. Capella Space

Capella Space [22] is a US space company based in San Francisco, California and founded in 2016 by Payam Banazadeh and William Walter Woods to create capabilities for hourly, reliable and persistent imagery of anywhere on the globe. To fulfil this aim they are developing space-based radar EO satellites equipped with Synthetic Aperture Radar.

Capella’s constellation of small satellites employs space-based radar, beaming through darkness and cloud cover to gather the information you need to make informed decisions When fully deployed, Capella, will offer hourly coverage of every point on Earth, rendered in sub-meter resolution, through the world’s largest constellation of radar satellites. The satellite constellation is going to be composed by micro-satellites build and launched for a fraction of the cost of large satellites, reducing the time required for responsive, high revisit EO infrastructure. When fully deployed, the Capella constellation will be comprised of 12 polar orbits and with a geometry optimized for maximum global coverage and revisit times that never exceed one hour.

The constellation will be able to provide data in all weather conditions and during the day and the night. The optical satellites that are limited by two factors which are the light and the weather. Cloud cover and darkness mean that at any given moment, only the 25% Earth surface can be captured through optical imaging. In the other hand, Capella’s SAR satellites, operating in the X-band, can see through clouds and in the dark, so you always get the information you need when you need it, which means the 100% of the times.

Capella Space constellation will provide data to the following markets:

• Infrastructure monitoring: Infrastructure failure is often catastrophic. For operators of airports, darns, power plants, roads and bridges across the world, preparedness is the key. The constellation will be able to detect minute, sub-meter changes in built infrastructure, for example, monitor the integrity of critical infrastructure to detect early indications of stress.

• Agriculture: Growers can access to Capella’s data which was created specifically for assess viability and yield of their own harvest as well as to measure and track global supplies for a seed to distribution. Due to the radar-based technology, the satellite of the constellation can also measure soil moisture and inundation, detect where crops have been damaged and provide a reliable and up-to-date source for insurance claims.

• Disaster Response and recovery: Because the weather is not a factor, first responders can get valuable information in the fastest possible way having a real impact on people’s survival. Due to communications infrastructure is often the first thing to go in a disaster, data from the satellites and the short revisit time can help to clear thinking, decisive action and accurate intelligence to save lives in search, rescue and recovery operations.

Study of future perspectives of micro/nanosatellites constellations in the Earth Observation market

1.1.8. Earth-i

Earth-i [23] is a British start-up which is at the forefront of the commercialization of space. Nowadays, they supply high-resolution image data service from the DMC3/TripleSat Constellation, KOMPSAT series of satellites and SuperView satellites to clients across the globe. They range of service, from data processing to analytics, help the policymakers and innovators of today take more effective decisions, more rapidly.

Their vision is to have a consistent flow of EO data that will drive powerful insights into what’s happening on Planet Earth, at any location and in near real-time. Such insights will unlock the answers to the most challenging of questions and drive the big decisions about how the world can be managed to deliver security and prosperity for the communities.

In 2020, they will deploy their small, agile EO satellite constellation to offer to their clients, world-leading video and images from space, with a level of spatial and temporal resolution that’s never been seen before. Their goal is to unlock powerful analytics and insights that governments and industry require to make the decisions that increasingly shape our planet. They believe that for the potential of planetary big data to fully realise the stream of data must be delivered on a global, timely and assured basis.

Their constellation will be constituted by 15 satellites launched in batches of 5 and orbiting initially at 550km in a sun-synchronous orbit with further orbital places planned for monitoring and afternoon LTAN or LTDN. Their satellites will be able to provide a super- resolution of 60cm, 1 m GSD and full motion, full-colour video and 3 bands true colour image size of 5.2km x 5.2km with a fixed frame geometry. The minimum revisit time will be 2 times per day globally and additional revisits as the constellation grows.

The data from their satellites provide extensive capabilities, analytics and insights through high-resolution imagery and frequent revisits. They EO data from space supports unique applications across a range of market sectors:

• Defence, Security and Intelligence: from military reconnaissance to detection systems for defence, geospatial intelligence and national security applications.

• Urban management and smart cities: Enhance sustainable urban development and smart city planning by providing data to aids city infrastructure management and population density mapping.

• Maritime Monitoring, observation and tracking: Enhance maritime monitoring and tracking with satellite data by providing live vessel tracking for boats and cargo ships with real-time data and detail mapping.

• Energy and natural resources: satellite imagery aids sustainable Oil and gas exploration with remote sensing geology service including oil spill detection.

Study of future perspectives of micro/nanosatellites constellations in the Earth Observation market

• National Mapping and Cadastral solutions: their satellite technology can provide high quality and very high-resolution mapping services for any location on Earth.

• Civil and Local government: Enhance decision making for government organisations on land and carbon management, as well as law enforcement with satellite images.

• Agriculture: with Earth-i precision farming technology it is possible to enhance specific crop management with the usage of satellite imagery.

• Environment and Disaster response: Enhance environmental disaster response and risk reduction through a flood, forest fire, deforestation detection and monitoring services.

• Commercial and insurance: Aids companies working in construction and engineering with the location analysis for commercial and insurance risks with satellite mapping.

1.1.9. Axelspace

AXELSPACE [24] is a Japan company founded by Yuya Nakamura in 2018. The aim of the company is to create microsatellites and use them to solve problems from space. They technology born in the labs of the University of Tokyo and the Tokyo Institue of Tecnology and since then the performance and realivity have continuously improved. They have focuses their efforts on developing microsatellites because they represent a new paradigm, drastically lowering risk and cost for space utilization. With microsatellites, they want to deliver the value of space to as many people as possible. To fulfill their aim, one of their current projects is developing the GRUS -1 constellation.

Grus [25] is a next-generation remote sensing microsatellite, considered the building block of Axelspace’s EO constellation. Even with its mass of around 100kg, it will obtain images with 2.5m ground resolution. Grus will produce images in the panchromatic (greyscale) spectrum, and also it will take multispectral photographs in the blue, green, red, red edge (useful for vegetation analysis) and near-infrared bands. Despite being microsatellites, it will use the latest in optical and sensor technology to deliver images spanning more than 50 km in width, allowing highly efficient coverage of the planet.

The large constellation of Grus satellites will update the imagery of the Earth every day, enabling new and more meaningful uses in industries like agriculture, forestry, fishing, mapping, GIS and disaster monitoring. High-frequency data will allow not only for the assessment of the present situation but also for the observation of trends and the prediction of future phenomena.

Study of future perspectives of micro/nanosatellites constellations in the Earth Observation market

1.1.10. Karten Space

Karten Space [26] is a Spanish company placed in Alava founded to develop a constellation of innovative and high-performance nanosatellites for EO and deliver high- frequency imagery of any part of the world at a cost-effective price. They are a technological SEM with the aim of becoming the first company in Europe that designs, develops and operates their own constellation of nanosatellites for the EO.

Karten Space EO satellites (KEOSats) are 7 kg nanosatellites designed through advanced engineering requirements and produced using additive manufacturing, being the first commercial satellites with a primary structure manufactured using this cutting-edge technology (3D printing). By integrating advanced electronics and software and a multispectral camera, KEOSats capture images from the Earth surface at 4 spectral bands and with a high spatial resolution of 3 meters at 500 km.

With these innovative capabilities enable the KEOSat constellation can offer one of the largest collections of Earth data, captured from every place on Earth at least once a day to better monitor the changes on the Earth.

Karten space offers three different products to turn satellite imagery into value-added business outcomes by tracking linear infrastructure, agriculture fields, mines, logistic centres, forest, natural disasters, cities and oceans and ports. These three products are:

• For market intelligence: identification and tracking solution to get insights of different assets to perform better trading and better operation decisions by identifying and evaluating the stock in any part of the world, staying ahead of the market movements and reveal hidden patterns in supply and demand chain.

• Place monitoring: automatic monitorization of any place in the world, monitor real state developments and activities, measure work progresses and take control over the place without worrying about difficult access areas.

• Change control: to be continuously informed, anticipated, control impacts and events to be able to quickly plan and response using their automatic change detection and object classifications in order to facilitate inspections, prospections and tracking tasks.

1.1.11. Hera Systems

Hera Systems [5] was founded in 2013 in San Jose, California and during its first two years it has focused on refining spacecraft design and capabilities, and the basic architecture for its secure data cloud and supporting web services for the next planned development.

It could be said that Hera Systems is a satellite information and analytics company that collects Earth images and is aimed to enable commercial and government organizations to

Study of future perspectives of micro/nanosatellites constellations in the Earth Observation market

monitor change and make smart decisions. An initial constellation will be launched consisting of nine 1-meter resolution satellites that will deliver fresh, daily imagery and video of Earth, as well as intelligent analytics and derived information products, made available on demand through a user interface. That initial constellation will be expanded according to market growth, reaching 50 satellites in order to provide near-hourly updates. Future generation systems will feature ultra-high-resolution imaging capabilities and other advanced technologies.

The company’s products for enterprises will be available in a “self-service” configuration via a proprietary application, called GeoSnap, which is supported on a variety of platforms (including mobile devices, smartphones and tablets), customized according to customer’s specific technical data needs. The entire satellite system, as well as the availability a functionality of the satellites, will be scalable following the evolution of the customer’s needs.

Hera Systems products will enable the governments and commercial enterprises customers to better monitor changes and events affecting Earth’s surface and emerging situations that influence the environment, the economy and our nation’s security, in order to help to make smarter decisions.

The base infrastructure to achieve its goals is the 1-meter resolution imaging microsatellite built on a 12 U-CubeSat, coming with a weight of 22 kg. The company intends to take advantage of launch costs reduction while increasing flexibility, transferring the benefits to customers.

The company sees itself as one of the industry’s most aggressive, simplest pricing for high-resolution satellite imagery and video. The competitive offer includes pre-square-kilometre pricing as low as $1 for achieved one-meter resolution imagery, $2 for freshly tasked one-meter imagery orders and $3 for 50-centimetre resolution products. The company’s competitive pricing and simplified ordering process reduce and eliminate the obstacles that have typically put such imagery products out of reach for customers and made the budgeting process cumbersome.

1.1.12. SatRevolution

SatRevolution [27] was founded in 2016 and is Wroclaw-based Newspace company to deliver complete in-house designed and manufactured nanosatellite systems and solutions, setting innovations and following the highest industry standards. They are specialized in NanoBus platforms, subsystems and nanosatellite-based services.

SatRevolution [28] is an innovative Polish company that its largest global venture is the construction of its own constellation of REC (Real-time Earth-observation Constellation. Satellites which could be used in transport, crisis management or city monitoring for the needs of a smart city. The company had developed Swiatowid, the first Polish observation nanosatellite.

Study of future perspectives of micro/nanosatellites constellations in the Earth Observation market

The company already had planned until 2026. It is then that it plans to launch more than 60 satellites into orbit, creating REC and providing Earth imagery in real time. The constellation’s basic unit will be the ScopeSat observation satellite, which will use a modular optical system with a synthetic aperture, making it possible to achieve imaging resolution below 1m. The used optical system will significantly reduce the satellite’s size and mass because it will expand to its full size only after reaching the orbit and because of this the construction cost has been significantly reduced. REC constellation will be composed by 1024 satellites providing a 50cm resolution and a revisit time of 30 min.

The images obtained by the REC constellation can help both in civil and military applications[27].

For civil applications:

• Insurance: natural disasters real-time predictions (floods, wildfires) and critical infrastructure monitoring. • Land survey: unauthorized constructions, inaccessible terrain measurements and overall cartography.

• Precision farming and insurance: plant stress monitoring and predictions due to droughts and deforestation.

• Smart cities: air pollution monitoring and sustainable development assistance.

For military applications:

• Imagery intelligence: real-time enemy’s crucial actions monitoring.

• Early warnings systems support: significant factor to information communication systems chain.

• Assistance of missile homing systems.

1.2. Technical parameters of the constellations

After introducing briefly, each of microsatellites and nanosatellites companies that will be included in this qualitative analysis, it is time start analysing them in order to identify tendencies in the new space market and compare with the ones described in the previous chapter. In table 3, it has been collected the initial data of this qualitative analysis.

To understand the values collected in table 3, it is important that first we describe the concepts that have been considered to proceed with this qualitative analysis. These concepts are:

- Organization: The manufacturer and operator of the constellation.

- Country: the country where the organization was founded.

Study of future perspectives of micro/nanosatellites constellations in the Earth Observation market

- Satellite constellation name: the name of the constellation of the micro and nanosatellite constellation that the organization is developing.

- Payload: refers to those elements of the spacecraft specifically dedicated to producing the mission data and then relaying the data back to earth.

- First Launch: the date of the launch of the first satellites of the constellation.

- Mass: it is referring to the deployed mass which is the mass of the satellites when is orbiting around the earth.

- GSD: In remote sensing, the ground sample distance (GSD) in a digital photo of the ground from space is the distance between pixel centres measured on the ground.

- Revisit time: is the time between observations of the same point on earth by a satellite.

- Planned number of satellites of the constellation: The number of satellites that will compound the constellation once completed.

Study of future perspectives of micro/nanosatellites constellations in the Earth Observation market

Table 3. Initial data for the qualitative analysis.

Planned Satellite Revisit number of Organization Country Constellation Payload First launch Mass (kg) GSD (m) time satellites of the name (days) constellation Planet US Flock Multispectral 2014 3 3,4 1 150 [29][30] Landmapper-BC Multispectral 2017 11 22 4 25 Astro Digital US [31][32][3][5][6] Multispectral Landmapper-HD 2019 20 2,5 4 20

BlackSky Multispectral US BlackSky Global 2016 55 1 0,2 60 [7][8][37] + Video Multispectral 2016 39 1 0,25 Satellogic Argentina ÑuSat (Aleph-1) Hyperspectral 2016 39 30 0,25 90 [38][39] Thermal 2016 39 90 0,25 OVS Video 2017 90 1,98 5 12 Zhuhai Orbita Control China [20][40][41][42] OHS Hyperspectral 2017 90 10 5 8 ICEYE Finland ICEYE-X SAR 2018 70 10 0,125 18 [43][44] Capella Space US Capella X-SAR SAR 2018 40 0,5 0,17 36 [45] Earth-i United Vivid-i Video 2019 100 1 0,5 15 [46][47] Kingdom Axelspace Grus Multispectral Japan 2019 95 2,5 1 50 [48][49]

Study of future perspectives of micro/nanosatellites constellations in the Earth Observation market

Planned Satellite Revisit number of Organization Country Constellation Payload First launch Mass (kg) GSD (m) time satellites of the name (days) constellation Karten Space KEOSat Multispectral Spain 2019 7 3 1 14 [50] Hera Systems USA 1HOPSat Multispectral + Video 2020 22 1 0,04 50 [51] SatRevolution Poland REC Multispectral 2022 2 0.5 0,04 1024 [27][52][28]

Study of future perspectives of micro/nanosatellites constellations in the Earth Observation market

The following step after defining the data that it will be used during the analysis is to organize it into different groups or categories to have a clear picture of the evolution and the future perspectives of the Micro/Nanosatellites constellations in the EO Market.

The constellations have been classified according to two different criteria. Firstly, they have been classified considering the satellite mass and with this, we determine which constellations must be included in the Nanosatellite category or in the Microsatellite category.

Once the constellations have been categorized as a Nanosatellite or Microsatellite, then it is time to group them considering their payload technology: only Multispectral, Hyperspectral, Multispectral and Video, Thermal, SAR or only Video. In table 4, it can be found the 7 resulting groups which are going to be used during the study.

Table 4. Classification of the initial data according to type of satellite and payload.

Planned Satellite Revisit Revisit Type of First number constellation Payload Mass GSD time time satellite Launch of name (Days) (Hours) satellites FLOCK Nano Multispectral 2014 3 3,4 1 24 150 1 KEOSat Nano Multispectral 2019 7 3 1 24 14 REC Nano Multispectral 2022 2 0,5 0,02 0,5 1024 Multispectral BlackSky Global Micro 2016 55 1 0,2 5 60 + Video 2 Multispectral 1HOPSat Micro 2020 22 1 0,04 1 50 + Video ÑuSat (Alep-1) 3 Micro Thermal 2016 39 90 0,25 6 90 Thermal ÑuSat (Alep-1) Micro Hyperspectral 2016 39 30 0,25 6 90 4 Hyperspectral OHS Micro Hyperspectral 2017 90 10 5 120 8 ÑuSat (Alep-1) Micro Multispectral 2016 39 1 0,25 6 90 Multispectral Landmapper- Micro Multispectral 2017 11 22 4 96 25 5 BC Landmapper- Micro Multispectral 2019 20 2,5 4 96 20 HD Grus Micro Multispectral 2019 95 2,5 1 24 50 ICEYE-X Micro SAR 2018 70 10 0,125 3 18 6 Capella X-SAR Micro SAR 2018 40 0,5 0,17 4 36 OVS Micro Video 2017 90 1,98 5 120 12 7 Vivid-i Micro Video 2019 100 1 0,5 12 15

Study of future perspectives of micro/nanosatellites constellations in the Earth Observation market

1.3. Results of the analysis

After the classification in groups of the different constellations, now it is time to analyse the parameters in order to extract results and compare them with the two feasible scenarios described in the previous section. As a reminder, the two scenarios are:

1) Presence of imagery mega constellation of hundreds or even thousands of small satellites in Low Earth Orbit. 2) Small satellites have the same capabilities as larger satellites, especially in the area of remote sensing and situational awareness (SA).

To get the results, the most direct method is to plot the parameters one against the other in a logical way to find relationships between them.

The first interesting result is the one obtained in figure 20, wherein a graphic way, it is easy to see which payload technology is the most chosen by the manufacturers and operators.

Multispectral SAR Microsatellite Types of payload Microsatellite 3% Video Microsatellite 11% 1% Hyperspectral Microsatellite 6%

Thermal Microsatellite 5%

Multispectral + Video Microsatellite Multispectral 6% Nanosatellite 68%

Figure 20. Types of payloads of the satellites included in the analysis sample

As you can see, the most chosen option with a 68% is to launch nanosatellites with a multispectral sensor on board. The second option far away from the first one with only 11%, it is as well the multispectral sensor but in this case on board of a Microsatellite.

So, we could say that the multispectral sensor is the most common technology for nanosatellites and microsatellites. Probably since is the less complex technology to be adapted into small size to fit in the dimensions of the microsatellite and nanosatellite.

The other options, 21% of the total, have nowadays low presence in the market and in the launched or planned to launch microsatellites. The main reason of this low presence is the

Study of future perspectives of micro/nanosatellites constellations in the Earth Observation market

fact that these technologies (hyperspectral, video, thermal and SAR) have not yet achieved their full potential and they are still under development to be suitable for microsatellites.

Figure 21 shows the evolution of the Ground Sample Distance (GSD) from 2014 to 2022. In the graph, it has also included the three of the four levels of resolution: very high (lower than 1m), high (from 1m to 15m) and medium (from 15m to 50m).

EVOLUTION OF THE GSD

Very high High Medium Multispectral Nanosatellite Multispectral + Video Microsatellite Thermal Microsatellite Hyperspectreal Microsatellite Multispectral Microsatellite SAR Microsatellite Video Microsatellite 100

60 GSD GSD (M) 50

0 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019 2020 2021 2022 2023

FIRST LAUNCH YEAR

Figure 21. Evolution of the GSD of EO micro and nanosatellites.

Most of the constellations are place in the lower part which means that they are offering data at very high and high resolution. The constellations that can get this type of data are the ones that carry on board a Multispectral sensor, a SAR sensor and a video camera. In the other hand, the constellations that are betting on the hyperspectral sensor and thermal sensor are providing medium and low-resolution images. From the point of view of mass, Nanosatellites are the ones that can offer a lower GSD with the perspective of achieving values below 1m in the future.

As we can observe, through the years, the main objective of the companies it has been to provide the lowest GSD. To do that they have invested in improving and adapting optical technology inherited from large satellites such as multispectral and SAR sensor. However, in 2016, they started introducing new technology such as hyperspectral, thermal sensor and finally

Study of future perspectives of micro/nanosatellites constellations in the Earth Observation market

video cameras to offer something different to the costumers and fulfil new needs despite they had to sacrifice resolution.

Nowadays, most of the constellations are using multispectral sensors and video cameras because from one side, the hyperspectral and thermal sensors are still in the first stages of their development for nanosatellites and microsatellites. And on the other side, they cannot directly compete with the resolutions offered by large satellites or missions like Worldview or Sentinel.

Therefore, the GSD drop to the second position in the scale of preferences of the nanosatellites and microsatellites developers and manufacturers because they identify that the market begs for real-time data which means they prefer quantity instead of quality.

To have real-time data means increasing the revisit time of the constellations. Revisit time is referring to the time between observations of the same point on earth. In figure 22 it is represented the evolution of the constellations revisit time through years.

EVOLUTION OF THE REVISIT TIME

Multispectral Nanosatellite Multispectral + Video Microsatellite Thermal Microsatellite Hyperspectral Microsatellite Multispectral Microsatellite SAR Microsatellite Video Microsatellite 140

120

100

60 REVISIT TIME (H)REVISITTIME 40

0 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019 2020 2021 2022 2023

FIRST LAUNCH YEAR

Figure 22. Evolution of the revisit time of EO micro and nanosatellites.

Most of the constellations have a revisit time equal or below to 24h, which means that visits the same point of the earth at least once a day. Since 2014, revisit time has been fluctuating

Study of future perspectives of micro/nanosatellites constellations in the Earth Observation market

among different values probably due to the changes of preferences of the companies of what to offer to their customers.

Revisit time does not depend on the technology that they carry on board but to the orbit and the number of satellites of the constellation. At higher orbits, the revisit time of the constellation increases which means, it moves far away from the real-time data concept. In the other hand, having more satellites means decreasing the revisit time because with more satellites orbiting around the Earth the chances to pass over the same area increases.

Nowadays, the companies focus all their efforts in reducing as much as they can the revisit time to ensure the usage of the full potential of the low orbital periods of microsatellites and nanosatellites orbiting around at VLEO and at LEO.

Another determining factor of reducing the revisit time is to increase the number of satellites of the constellation. The evolution of the number of satellites in the different constellations through the years is represented in figure 23.

EVOLUTION OF THE PLANNED NUMBER OF SATELLITES Hyperspectral Microsatellite target Multispectral Nanosatellite Multispectral + Video Microsatellite Thermal Microsatellite Multispectral Microsatellite SAR Microsatellite Video Microsatellite 1200

1000

800

600

400 PLANNED NUMBER OF SATELLITES OF NUMBER PLANNED 200

0 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019 2020 2021 2022 2023 FIRST LAUNCH YEAR

Figure 23. Evolution of the planned of EO micro and nanosatellites constellations.

Study of future perspectives of micro/nanosatellites constellations in the Earth Observation market

In figure 23, the symbols are the constellations of the sample, and the horizontal line determines the objective of the scenario 1 that expose the appearance in the future of at least one or two mega imagery constellations with hundreds or thousands of satellites.

As it can be seen in the graph, most of the constellations are under this threshold of 100 and only two overcome the objective: The Flock constellation from Planets and the REC constellation of SATRevolution. Both constellations base their payload technology on the multispectral sensor and composed by Nanosatellites.

The other constellations do not achieve the target because the cost and complexity of building microsatellites based on Hyperspectral, Thermal and SAR sensor is higher than manufacture multispectral nanosatellites. And because of that, in case of the launch failure, it is faster to rebuild multispectral nanosatellites and the losses have a lower impact.

We said before that the revisit time depends on the orbit and the number of satellites of the constellation. Due to the orbit is defined in the requirements of this project and set into Very Low Earth Orbit and Low Earth Orbit, the interesting parameter to be analysed is the number of satellites of the constellations against the obtained revisit time.

In figure 24, it is having been plotted the planned number of satellites and the revisit time the company is expected to provide to see if this hypothesis (increasing the number of satellites reduces the revisit time) is true. The figure is composed of two different lines. The blue one represents the evolution of the number of satellites and the orange one is the revisit time.

REVISIT TIME VS NUMBER OF SATELLITES Number of satellites Revisit time 1200

1000

800

600

400

200

2017 2013 2014 2015 2016 2018 2019 2020 2021 2022 2023

Figure 24. Comparison between the Revisit time and the number of satellites of the constellation.

Study of future perspectives of micro/nanosatellites constellations in the Earth Observation market

We have divided the results into three different groups to analyse in more detail, the relationship between the two parameters, the three groups are A (green), B (brown) and C (blue).

The constellations of group A are constellations which do not overcome the 100 satellites per constellation threshold. The behaviour of these constellations is the expected one, which means that increasing the number of satellites, it is possible to reduce the revisit.

The constellations of group B just behave in the opposite way of the ones included in group A. In this case, they do not reduce the revisit time by increasing the number of satellites but what they do is reducing the number of satellites to have a lower revisit time.

The two constellations included in group C, are the two constellations that overcome the 100 satellites threshold and behave the same way as the constellations of group A. These constellations are planned to provide to the customers real-time data by creating mega constellations to achieve the lowest revisit time.

It is difficult through the graph to determine which of these three behaviours is the real one. To determine which is the best to achieve the lowest revisit time we have performed the qualitative analysis exposed in section 4.

And finally, in figure 25 is collected all the information analysed for each constellation, the first year of the launch, the GSD, the mass and the revisit time. Each circle represents each of the constellations and the size of the circle is related to the mass and the colour includes the constellation into a revisit time category. With this figure, we can see that the objective of the companies is to develop constellations with higher number of satellites to get the minimum revisit time as possible and provide high-resolution images to the customers to help them to fulfil their needs. In terms of mass, the tendency is to reduce the size of the satellites and manufacture them in accordance with the nanosatellite and CubeSat standards.

Study of future perspectives of micro/nanosatellites constellations in the Earth Observation market

120

Satellogic (Thermal) 39 kg 100

80 Zhuhai Orbita Control Revisit Time (Hyperspectral) 60 90 kg Astro Digital < 1day Satellogic (Landmapper-HD) Astro Digital (hyperspectral) 20 kg (Landmapper-BC) 39 kg ICEYE 40 11 kg 1day 70 kg

GSD GSD (m) Axel Space 95 kg Satellogic (Multispectral) 20 39 kg Hera Systems > 1day 22 kg

0 Planet 3 kg BlackSky Earth-i SatRevolution -20 55 kg 100 kg 2 kg Zhuhai Orbita Control (Video) Capella Space Karten Space 90 kg 40 kg 7 kg -40

FIRST LAUNCH YEAR

Figure 25. GSD, the first year of launching, mass and revisit time of EO micro and nanosatellites

Study of future perspectives of micro/nanosatellites constellations in the Earth Observation market

4. Quantitative analysis

The aim of the quantitative analysis is to study the relationship between the revisit time and the number of satellites. To do so, we are going to study it through a case, the Flock constellation from Planet and it will be using the simulation tool known as SaVi (Satellite Constellation visualization).

SaVi [53], is a program for visualizing satellite orbits, movement and coverage and it is maintained by the University of Surrey. This tool is used for research in academic papers, and by industry companies which want to design and intend to deploy satellite constellations. It has been also useful to demonstrate aspects of satellites constellations and their geometry, coverage and movement for educational and teaching purposes.

SaVi exists as a standalone program that can also be run as a module that interfaces with and controls the Geomview program. Geomview is a general-purpose rendering program useful to mathematicians; SaVi leverages Geomview for simple three-dimensional (3D) rendering.

Although SaVi only provides a relatively simple degree of satellite simulation functionality when compared to more full-featured commercial packages, its open codebase and contributions around the world have led to a long-lived, robust, portable, cross-platform tool that has attracted a wide degree of interest. SaVi appears to have gained a useful educational role in introducing and explaining the properties of satellite constellations.

4.1. Flock constellation introduction

The Flock constellation or also known as PlanetScope [54], consists of multiple launches of groups of individual satellites. Therefore, on-orbit capacity is constantly improving in capability or quantity, with technology improvements deployed at a rapid pace. Each Flock satellite is a CubeSat 3U form factor (10cm by 10cm by 10cm). In figure 26, there are the main characteristics of the Flock constellation and the sensor specifications.

Figure 26. Flock constellation and sensor specifications. [54]

Study of future perspectives of micro/nanosatellites constellations in the Earth Observation market

As it can be seen in figure 26, Flock satellite could carry on board a three-band frame imager working on the Blue, green and red bands or a four-band frame imager with a split-frame NIR filter. Having the NIR filter allow the sensor to take pictures the 24h a day with no need of the sunlight.

Flock constellation is not a static constellation with only one launch to put all the satellite in orbits. Since the 2014 Planet has launched the satellites in phases in order to replace the old satellites by new ones with better technical specifications. The different launch phases of the Flock constellation are in Table 5 (further information in Annex 2). Since 2014, Planet has successfully put in orbit 315 satellites and 197 of them are nowadays still operational.

Table 5. The flock constellation phases

% of Name Launch date Status Nº satellites Constellation Flock 1 09/01/2014 Re-entry 7% 28 Flock 1c 19/06/2014 Operational 3% 11 Flock 1b 13/07/2014 Re-entry 7% 28 Flock 1d 28/10/2019 Launch failure 7% 26 Flock 1d' 10/01/2019 Re-entry 1% 2 Flock 1e 14/04/2015 Re-entry 4% 14 Flock 1f 28/06/2014 Launch failure 2% 8 Flock 2b 22/09/2016 Re-entry 4% 14 Flock 2e 06/12/2012 Re-entry 3% 12 Flock 2e' 23/03/2016 Re-entry 5% 20 Flock 2P 22/06/2016 Operational 3% 12 Flock 3P 14/02/2017 Operational 23% 88 Flock 2k 14/07/2017 Operational 13% 47 Flock 3m 31/10/2017 Operational 1% 4 Flock 3p' 11/01/2018 Operational 1% 4 Flock 3r 29/10/2018 Operational 4% 16 Flock 3s 03/12/2018 Operational 1% 3 Flock 3K 27/12/2018 Operational 3% 12 Flock v 31/12/2019 Not launched 3% 12 Flock xx 31/12/2019 Not launched 11% 43

Re-entry 31% 118 Launch failure 9% 34 Operational 52% 197 Not launched 15% 55 TOTAL 100% 376

Study of future perspectives of micro/nanosatellites constellations in the Earth Observation market

In figure 27 is represented in a graphic way the last part of table 5, which reflects the operational status of the satellites launched since the beginning of the conformation of the Flock constellation. The satellites have been classified into four different categories:

• Re-entry: included in this category all the satellites that was no longer operational but were in the past.

• Launch failure: included in this category all the satellites that were launched but never reach the orbit and become operational.

• Not launched: included in this category all the satellites that have not launched yet but will be soon.

• Operational: included in this category all the satellites that are operational and transmitting data.

As you can see in figure 27, the Operational satellites represent the 52% of the total launched, the 31% of the satellites were operational in the past but experience a re- entry and the launching failures of the company referring to the Flock constellation represent only the 9% of the total.

Flock constellation satellite operational status Not launched 15% Re-entry 31%

Launch failure 9% Operational 52%

Figure 27. Flock constellation satellite operational status.

Study of future perspectives of micro/nanosatellites constellations in the Earth Observation market

4.2. SAVI Simulation Results

In this section are presented the results obtained with SaVi simulation tool. Due to the capability of the software to simulate the movement, orbit and coverage of satellites constellations, we can determine the evolution of the revisit time and the coverage of the Flock constellation. To do the simulation it has only been considered the satellites that are still operative nowadays. The operative satellites represent 52% of the total satellites launched by Planet.

The operational satellites were not launched all at once, the company decided to launch them in different phases through the years. Because of that, it has been decided to make an accumulative simulation as shown in figure 28. The process of introducing the data to SaVi and obtain the results is explained in Annex 4.

1 2 3

4 5 6

7 8 9

Figure 28. The evolution of the Flock constellation

Study of future perspectives of micro/nanosatellites constellations in the Earth Observation market

As it can be seen in table 5, the Flock constellation starts with the first launch of 11 satellites in 2014 and end up in 2018 having 197 satellites orbiting around the Earth to increase the area of influence of the constellation.

With the information presented in table 6, we can determine if the increment of the number of satellites is directly connected with the idea of the company to increase the coverage of the constellation in order to reduce the revisit time and refresh the data as fast as possible. In the table, it is identified for each of the constellation phases, the coverage.

In figure 29, it is represented the legend of the coverage visualization the one in the top determines if in the zone it is day or night, and the one in the bottom determines how many satellites can take data of the zone at the same time.

Figure 29. Legend of the SaVi coverage visualization

Study of future perspectives of micro/nanosatellites constellations in the Earth Observation market

Table 6. The flock constellation coverage evolution

Number of Phase Coverage satellites in-Orbit

1 11

Study of future perspectives of micro/nanosatellites constellations in the Earth Observation market

Number of Phase Coverage satellites in-Orbit

2 23

Study of future perspectives of micro/nanosatellites constellations in the Earth Observation market

Number of Phase Coverage satellites in-Orbit

3 111

Study of future perspectives of micro/nanosatellites constellations in the Earth Observation market

Number of Phase Coverage satellites in-Orbit

4 158

Study of future perspectives of micro/nanosatellites constellations in the Earth Observation market

Number of Phase Coverage satellites in-Orbit

5 162

Study of future perspectives of micro/nanosatellites constellations in the Earth Observation market

Number of Phase Coverage satellites in-Orbit

6 166

Study of future perspectives of micro/nanosatellites constellations in the Earth Observation market

Number of Phase Coverage satellites in-Orbit

7 182

Study of future perspectives of micro/nanosatellites constellations in the Earth Observation market

Number of Phase Coverage satellites in-Orbit

8 185

Study of future perspectives of micro/nanosatellites constellations in the Earth Observation market

Number of Phase Coverage satellites in-Orbit

9 197

Study of future perspectives of micro/nanosatellites constellations in the Earth Observation market

As expected, the coverage of the Flock constellation increases at the same time as new satellites become operational on-orbit.

The biggest detected changes in terms of coverage are the ones between the following phases:

1. Between phase 2 and 3: there is a significant change because they transform a 23-satellite constellation into a 111-satellite constellation. Most of the zones are covered by 4 or more different satellites, winning reliability.

2. Between phase 3 and 5: In this case, what they do is to pass from a 111-satellite constellation to a 162-satellite constellation. With this improvement, it is possible to have more data to compare and provide the most accurate data to the customer.

3. Between phase 5 and 7: with this jump, they achieve a 182-satellite constellation from a 162-satellite constellation. What they want is to perfectionate the constellation system and move closer to their objective.

4. Between phase 7 and 9: this is the final improvement where it is achieved the 197-satellite constellation.

In general, the most determining change is the first one, because, with it, they overcome the threshold of the 100-satellite mega constellation and have the possibility (according to the qualitative analysis) to come close to the real-time data concept.

The last and most important step of this quantitative analysis is to study the evolution of the values obtained for the revisit time in the different phases of the constellation. This step is important because we can determine which of the three groups of constellations defined in the qualitative analysis (see figure 24) is feasible and which is not.

Table 6 presents the results obtained with SaVi for the different phases of the Flock constellation. In Annex 4 it is explained how the revisit time has been calculated for each constellation phase.

Table 7. Revisit time of each of the Flock constellation phases

Nº of Revisit Revisit Date Satellites satellites time time (h) in-orbit (days) 19/06/2014 1C 11 144 6 22/06/2016 1C + 2P 23 72 3 14/02/2017 1C + 2P + 3P 111 24 1 14/07/2017 1C + 2P + 3P + 2K 158 24 1 31/10/2017 1C + 2P + 3P + 2K+ 3M 162 24 1 11/01/2018 1C + 2P + 3P + 2K+ 3M + 3P' 166 24 1 29/10/2018 1C + 2P + 3P + 2K+ 3M + 3P' + 3R 182 24 1 03/12/2018 1C + 2P + 3P + 2K+ 3M + 3P' + 3R +3S 185 24 1 27/12/2018 1C + 2P + 3P + 2K+ 3M + 3P' + 3R +3S +3K 197 24 1

Study of future perspectives of micro/nanosatellites constellations in the Earth Observation market

As we can see, the biggest changes occur in the first phases of the constellation. The constellation starts with a revisit time of 144h, then experience a reduction of 50% with the introduction of 12 new satellites in the constellation. And finally, once the constellation overcomes the 100-satellite threshold the data can be refreshed every day. This means that at least we need a 100-satellite constellation to be able to provide to the customer data from a specific location once a day.

The other interesting result that we get with the simulation of the different phases of the flock constellation is the fact that once the 100-satellites threshold has been overcome, it does not matter if the number of satellites increases to almost 200 satellites, the revisit time does not experience a change, it remains at 24h.

In figures 30 and 31, are represented the data from table 7 in a graphical way to better understand the evolution of the number of satellites of the constellation and the revisit time through the years.

EVOLUTION OF THE FLOCK CONSTELLATION 250

197 182 200

158 166

150 185 162

NUMBER OF SATELLITES OF NUMBER 100

111 23 50 11

0 1 9 / 0 6 / 2 0 1 4 1 9 / 0 6 / 2 0 1 5 1 9 / 0 6 / 2 0 1 6 1 9 / 0 6 / 2 0 1 7 1 9 / 0 6 / 2 0 1 8 LAUNCH DATE

Figure 30. Evolution of the number of satellites of the Flock constellation

In figure 29 is represented the evolution of the Flock constellation since the first launch in 2014 until the last one performed in 2018. For this graphical representation only, the operational satellites have considered. The Flock constellation starts with the launch of 11

Study of future perspectives of micro/nanosatellites constellations in the Earth Observation market

satellites and has evolved until becoming a nanosatellite constellation with 197 operational satellites.

The future perspective of the company about the Flock constellation in terms of the number of satellites is to focus on expanding the coverage with the launch of new 55 satellites at the end of 2019 as well as maintaining the capacity of obtaining data at the current revisit time. With the launch of these new nanosatellites the company will be nourishing the actual constellation due to the probable re-entry of the satellites that are nowadays operative, but their life expectancy is between 3 and 5 years.

EVOLUTION OF THE REVISIT TIME 160 144 140

120

100 72 80

REVIST TIME (H)TIMEREVIST 60

40 24 24 24 24

20 24 24 24

0 1 9 / 0 6 / 2 0 1 4 1 9 / 0 6 / 2 0 1 5 1 9 / 0 6 / 2 0 1 6 1 9 / 0 6 / 2 0 1 7 1 9 / 0 6 / 2 0 1 8 LAUNCH DATE

Figure 31. Evolution of the revisit time of the Flock constellation

In the other hand, in figure 30 is represented in a graphical way the revisit time of the constellation through the years. In the begin of the constitution of the constellation, the revisit time was not competitive at all because the refreshing of the data happened every 6 days. To turn this situation and take the natural advantages of the nanosatellites in Very Low Earth Orbits and Low Earth Orbits, they decide to enlarge the constellation by increasing the number of satellites on-orbit. With this strategy maintained through the years, they have managed to have a successful constellation providing a revisit time of 24h.

The revisit time is the real one because as it is explained in section 4.1, the satellites of the Flock constellation have on board a camera working on the visible band as well as the NIR

Study of future perspectives of micro/nanosatellites constellations in the Earth Observation market

(Near-Infrared) band, which means that the satellite can take photos the 24h of the day due to no need of sunlight or being obstructed by specific weather conditions appearing in the atmosphere like clouds.

NUMBER OF SATELLITES VS REVISIT TIME

Number of satellites Revisit time (h) 250

200

150

100

0 14/08/2013 27/12/2014 10/05/2016 22/09/2017 04/02/2019 18/06/2020

Figure 32. Comparison between the revisit time and the number of satellites of the Flock constellation.

In figure 32 is represented both graphs to compare and to detect the relationship between them in order to determine which of the three behaviours obtained in the qualitative analysis (see figure 24) is the most feasible one.

These three behaviours can be summarized as:

- Group A constellations: o Constellation with the number of satellites below 100. o The revisit time decreases if the number of satellites increases.

- Group B constellations: o Constellations with the number of satellites below 100. o The revisit time decreases if the number of satellites decreases.

- Group C constellations: o Constellation with the number of satellites above 100. o The revisit time decreases if the number of satellites increases.

Study of future perspectives of micro/nanosatellites constellations in the Earth Observation market

4.3. Results of the analysis

Having as the example the simulations of the Flock constellation, we can determine that group A and group C constellations are the most feasible one due to the graph of figure 31. In this figure, if we increase the number of satellites, the revisit time decreases. But also, we can detect that after the 100-satellites threshold is pass, the revisit time does not experience any kind of change and remains stable at 24h even though we double the number of satellites.

Now the last thing is to see which of these two groups is more probable than the other one. To that, we must analyse each of the constellations used in the qualitative analysis. The first step is to classify all of them according to the three groups defined before. This classification can be found in table 8.

Table 8. Classification of the constellations considering their revisit time and the planned number of satellites.

Planned Satellite Revisit number of Group Organization Constellation time satellites of the constellation name (days) constellation Planet Flock 1 150 C [29][30] Landmapper-BC 4 25 A Astro Digital [31][32][3][5][6] Landmapper-HD 4 20 A BlackSky BlackSky Global 0,2 60 A [7][8][37] 0,25 Satellogic ÑuSat (Aleph-1) 0,25 90 A [38][39] 0,25 OVS 5 12 A Zhuhai Orbita Control [20][40][41][42] OHS 5 8 A ICEYE ICEYE-X 0,125 18 B [43][44] Capella Space Capella X-SAR 0,17 36 B [45] Earth-i Vivid-i 0,5 15 B [46][47] Axelspace Grus 1 50 B [48][49] Karten Space KEOSat 1 14 B [50] Hera Systems 1HOPSat 0,04 50 A [51] SatRevolution REC 0,04 1024 C [27][52][28]

Study of future perspectives of micro/nanosatellites constellations in the Earth Observation market

After the classification, the second step is to compare the revisit time of the constellation planned by the company and the revisit time obtained by the simulations of the Flock constellation with the SaVi software. To have a more accurate comparison, we are going to determine the equation of the revisit time and the number of satellites of the Flock constellation.

To determine this equation to calculate the revisit time, it has been made graphically with EXCEL by plotting the number of satellites as the known variable (variable X) and the revisit time as the variable that must be calculated with the equation (variable y). The resulting graph of plotting these two variables corresponds to figure 32.

Revisit time vs number of satellites

160

140 y = 553,29x-0,615 120 R² = 0,9686

100

Revisti Revisti time (h) 60

0 0 50 100 150 200 250 Number of satellites

Figure 33. Revisit time according to the number of satellites of the Flock constellation

The equation obtained to compute the revisit time knowing the number of satellites is the following one:

Equation to calculate the revisit time if the 푦 = 553,29 · 푥−0.615 number of satellites is known

Study of future perspectives of micro/nanosatellites constellations in the Earth Observation market

Once we have the equation, it is time to calculate the revisit time according to the results obtained in the SaVi simulation of the Flock constellation. To compute these revisit times, it has been used the equation obtained in figure 32. The results of the revisit time calculated with the equation are in table 9. We have also computed the error between the company revisit time and the one obtained through the equation.

Table 9. Comparative between the company revisit time and the simulation revisit time

Planned Company Simulation Satellite constellation name number of revisit time revisit time Error satellites (Hours) (Hours) FLOCK 150 24 25,4 6% BlackSky Global 60 5 44,6 792% ÑuSat (Alep-1) Thermal 90 6 34,8 480% ÑuSat (Alep-1) Hyperspectral 90 6 34,8 480% ÑuSat (Alep-1) Multispectral 90 6 34,8 480% OHS 8 120 154 28% Landmapper-BC 25 96 76,4 -20% OVS 12 120 120 0% ICEYE-X 18 3 93,5 3017% Capella X-SAR 36 4 61,1 1428% KEOSat 14 24 109,2 355% Landmapper-HD 20 96 87,7 -9% Grus 50 24 49,9 108% Vivid-i 15 12 104,6 772% 1HOPSat 50 1 49,9 4890% REC 1024 0,5 7,8 1460%

Then the following step is to determine the error of this equation to have better results in order to determine if the company could achieve the planned values or not. To do it, we must pick the value of the error of the Flock constellation because we know that the revisit time of this constellation once overcomes the 111-satellite constellation is 24h.

As we can see in table 9, the error of the revisit time calculated with the equation obtained with the equation is 6%. The real revisit time is 24h and the computed revisit time is 25,4h. This means that the values of the revisit time obtained through the equation experience an increase of the 6% respect the real value.

Error of the Revisit time values calculated + 6% with the equation

Study of future perspectives of micro/nanosatellites constellations in the Earth Observation market

After the identification of the error of the equation, now it is possible to recalculate these values by removing the discrepancy of 6% to have a better idea of the magnitude of the revisit time of each constellation. New values are collected in Table 10 and with them, we could determine if the planned revisit time according to the company is realistic or not.

Table 10. Expected revisit time values of the constellations

Planned Company Simulation Expected Satellite constellation name number of revisit time revisit time Error value satellites (Hours) (Hours) (Hours) FLOCK 150 24 25,4 24 BlackSky Global 60 5 44,6 42 ÑuSat (Alep-1) Thermal 90 6 34,8 33 ÑuSat (Alep-1) Hyperspectral 90 6 34,8 33 ÑuSat (Alep-1) Multispectral 90 6 34,8 33 OHS 8 120 154 145 Landmapper-BC 25 96 76,4 72 OVS 12 120 120 113 -6% ICEYE-X 18 3 93,5 88 Capella X-SAR 36 4 61,1 58 KEOSat 14 24 109,2 103 Landmapper-HD 20 96 87,7 83 Grus 50 24 49,9 47 Vivid-i 15 12 104,6 98 1HOPSat 50 1 49,9 47 REC 1024 0,5 7,8 7

In table 11, it has been computed the difference of hours between the expected revisit time of the company and the value obtained with the equation considering the 6% of error.

Table 11. Comparative between the planned revisit time and the expected revisit time

Planned Company Able to Expected number revisit achieve the Satellite constellation name value Difference of time planned (Hours) satellites (Hours) revisit time FLOCK 150 24 24 0 Yes BlackSky Global 60 5 42 -37 No ÑuSat (Alep-1) Thermal 90 6 33 -27 No ÑuSat (Alep-1) Hyperspectral 90 6 33 -27 No ÑuSat (Alep-1) Multispectral 90 6 33 -27 No OHS 8 120 145 -25 No Landmapper-BC 25 96 72 24 Yes OVS 12 120 113 7 Yes

Study of future perspectives of micro/nanosatellites constellations in the Earth Observation market

ICEYE-X 18 3 88 -85 No Capella X-SAR 36 4 58 -54 No KEOSat 14 24 103 -79 No Landmapper-HD 20 96 83 13 Yes Grus 50 24 47 -23 No Vivid-i 15 12 98 -86 No 1HOPSat 50 1 47 -46 No REC 1024 0,5 7 -6,5 No

We could divide the constellations into two different groups depending on the sign of the difference between the two values of the revisit time. The groups are:

• Negative sign: The company has planned a lower revisit time than the one expected by considering the planned number of satellites.

• Positive sign: The company has been conservative and planned to have a higher revisit time than the one expected considering the planned number of satellites.

In the last column of table 11, it has been identified if the constellation will be able to achieve the revisit time planned by the company. It can be seen that most of the constellation will not be able to accomplish the value because in all the cases the number of satellites is not enough to provide the revisit times advertised by the operators and manufactureres of the constellations.

So, after the development of this quantitative analysis, we finally establish as conclusions the following:

• The most feasible group of constellations that will be successful are the ones of group A and group C. • If we want to be able to refresh the data from a specific location at least once a day, it is necessary to build a constellation which overcomes the 100-satellite threshold. • Most of the companies are planning revisit times that we will not be able to reach if they do not increment on the number of satellites.

Study of future perspectives of micro/nanosatellites constellations in the Earth Observation market

5. Environmental, economic and safety aspects

5.1. Environmental aspects

This study is not directly related to an environmental issue but with the companies that this study is analysing, they could help to fight global warming and climate change by providing information to help understand better the causes of this phenomenon.

Nowadays there are more than a dozen earth science spacecraft in orbit with the mission of collecting climate data and contributing to reports on everything from the state of the atmosphere to rising sea levels.

EO images can contribute to analysing the soil, or the health of the vegetation, help the government to make decisions about pollution mitigation strategies, air quality and city heat islands policies as well as introducing smart waste management and optimise the management and use of water. Also, the data collected by micro and nanosatellites can help for example on public services such as fire brigades with the identification of hotspots, illegal logging or gas leaks. It can be an option too, to energy companies to invest in renewable energies such as the ones gotten from the sun, wind or waves.

In general, with the information provided by EO satellites, all the agents using natural resources can take advantage of it and optimise the way they currently are using them and avoid as much as they could the undistinctive destruction of our planet.

And finally, I want to add that with this thesis, we want to promote respect and good practices in activities that could involve the environment.

5.2. Economic aspects

The only activity which has created a cost has been the time dedicated to doing the research of information and the development of the study.

The total cost of this study (see budget) is estimated to be 9.100,00 €, mostly due to the cost of the hours of the student and the senior expert. For a detailed breakdown of this cost, refer to the budget document (separate volume).

5.3. Safety aspects

No safety concerns took part during the development of this project.

Study of future perspectives of micro/nanosatellites constellations in the Earth Observation market

6. Conclusions

In this section are presented the final conclusions of this study of the future perspectives of the Micro/Nano-satellite constellations. To identify these perspectives, two different analyses have been made, one in a more qualitative way and the other from a quantitative perspective.

But before start with these two analyses, it has been necessary to do some research on what the experts think of the future of this kind of constellations.

- Scenario 1: the presence of imagery mega constellations of hundreds or even thousands of small satellites for EO market.

- Scenario 2: Small satellites have almost the same capabilities as larger satellites, especially in the area of remote sensing and situation awareness.

- Scenario 3: Low Earth Orbit (LEO) is degraded to the point that it becomes unsafe to operate satellites without risking a collision.

- Scenario 4: the on-orbit servicing, assembly and manufacturing of spacecraft are a reality.

After analysing each scenario, the two feasible ones that can become successful in 10-15 years from now, are scenario 1 and scenario 2 that somehow are related to each other.

After the identification of the two more probable scenarios, the following step has been the performance of the qualitative study. This analysis consists of studying in detail several companies that are designing commercial constellations of micro and nanosatellites to fulfil the needs of the EO market to have an overall perspective of where the sector is going.

The first step of this qualitative analysis has been to determine which companies are going to be part of our study. To choose them, companies must accomplish the following three requirements:

1. To be a New Space company.

2. Launch or have plans to launch in the immediate future a Nano or Microsatellite constellation to provide EO imagery and orbiting in the Low Earth Orbit.

3. These constellations must carry on board at least a passive imagery sensor (multispectral sensor, hyperspectral sensor, thermal sensor or video) or an active imagery sensor (SAR).

The companies that have been selected to be part of this qualitative analysis are 12 companies placed all around the world. These companies are the following:

• 5 companies from the United States: Planet, Astro digital, BlackSky, Capella Space and Hera Systems. • 1 company from Argentina: Satellogic.

Study of future perspectives of micro/nanosatellites constellations in the Earth Observation market

• 1 Chinese company: Zhuhai Orbita Control. • 1 company of Finland: ICEYE • 1 company from the United Kingdom: Earth-i • 1 Japanese company: Axelspace. • 1 Spanish company: Karten space • 1 company from Poland: SATRevolution

The following step after defining the data of the qualitative was to organize it into different groups or categories to have a clear picture of the evolution and the future perspectives of the micro/nanosatellites constellations in the EO market

The constellations have been classified according to two different criteria. First considering the mass and then according to their payload technology: only Multispectral, Hyperspectral, Multispectral and Video, Thermal, SAR or only Video.

After the classification in groups of the different constellations and analyse the parameters in order to extract results and compare them with the two feasible scenarios, we conclude that the objective of the companies is to develop constellations with a higher number of satellites to get the minimum to revisit time as possible and provide high-resolution images to the customers to help them to fulfil their needs. In terms of mass, the tendency is to reduce the size of the satellites and manufacture them in accordance with the nanosatellite and CubeSat standards.

After performing the qualitative analysis, we move forward to the quantitative analysis. The aim of this analysis was to study the relationship between the revisit time and the number of satellites. To do so, the 197 operational satellites of the Flock constellation from Planet have been simulated with the simulation tool known as SaVi (Satellite Constellation visualization) to obtain the coverage and the revisit time of the different phases.

One of the interesting results of this simulation is the fact that only when the constellation overcomes the threshold of 100-satellite, it has the possibility to come close to provide real-time data to the customers.

The values of the revisit time obtained with the simulation are the real ones because the satellites of the Flock constellation have on board a camera working on the visible band as well as the NIR (Near-Infrared) band, which means that the satellite can take photos the 24h of the day due to no need of sunlight or being obstructed by specific weather conditions appearing in the atmosphere like clouds.

And finally, the last step of the entire study was to merge the results of the qualitative analysis and the quantitative analysis to see the relationship between the planned number of satellites with the revisit time, to determine if the advertised revisit time of the constellations is feasible or not.

After computing the revisit time using the equation obtained with the SaVi results for the Flock constellation and determining the error of such equation, we have detected that most of the constellations will not be able to accomplish their expectations because in all the cases the number of satellites is not enough to provide the revisit times advertised by the operators and manufacturers of the constellations.

After the development of the quantitative analysis, we finally establish the following conclusions:

Study of future perspectives of micro/nanosatellites constellations in the Earth Observation market

• The most feasible group of constellations that will be successful are the ones of group A and group C.

o Group A constellations: ▪ Constellation with the number of satellites below 100. ▪ The revisit time decreases if the number of satellites increases.

o Group C constellations: ▪ Constellation with the number of satellites above 100. ▪ The revisit time decreases if the number of satellites increases.

• If we want to be able to refresh the data from a specific location at least once a day, it is necessary to build a constellation which overcomes the 100-satellite threshold.

• Most of the companies are planning revisit times that we will not be able to reach if they do not increment on the number of satellites.

Study of future perspectives of micro/nanosatellites constellations in the Earth Observation market

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