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Maxar prepares for final WorldView Legion launch to complete advanced imaging constellation Maxar Intelligence is targeting early 2025 for the launch of its final pair of WorldView Legion imaging satellites, marking the completion of an ambitious six-spacecraft Earth observation constellation. Maxar’s third and fourth WorldView Legion satellites were the first to be placed in mid-inclination orbit, enabling “dawn-to-dusk” image collection capabilities. This orbital configuration allows the satellites to monitor regions between 45º north and 45º south latitude, where approximately 90% of the world’s population resides. “That’s new for Maxar,” Smoot said. The company released its first images from these mid-inclination satellites on November 19, with both spacecraft expected to begin supporting customer missions in the near term. The company’s existing infrastructure includes four legacy satellites and the first two WorldView Legion spacecraft, all operating in sun-synchronous orbit — circling Earth’s poles and capturing imagery at consistent daily intervals. The final two WorldView Legion satellites will join their predecessors in mid-inclination orbit, significantly expanding the constellation’s coverage capabilities. Initial customer feedback for the first two operational WorldView Legion satellites has been “tremendous,” according to Smoot, particularly regarding image clarity. He said clients have been eagerly anticipating the additional capacity that the complete constellation will provide. Maxar Intelligence is the U.S. government’s largest provider of Earth observation imagery, particularly for defense and national security. “We’re now focused on how we can use all this data to fuel our content and insights products, with a major focus on U.S. government and international customers,” he said.  https://lnkd.in/gyp5n5s8

Radio jam in orbit: Researchers have created the world's first open-access world map of frequency use for orbit. The interactive map shows where satellite frequencies are discharged and where free bandwidth still exists. The race for satellite internet is on. So far, there are three private companies in direct competition - SpaceX with Starlink/Starshield Amazon with the Kuiper project and the company OneWeb, which was founded specifically for this purpose. But China and the European Union have also already announced that they want to install their own satellite networks in Earth orbit in the future. The prospect of big profits and dominance over digital communications is tempting. An interactive world map now shows for the first time where these disruptions exist and in which areas of the orbit satellite communication is particularly often "stuck". As part of the SALSAT (Spectrum AnaLysis SATellite) mission, Burnicki and his team have specially developed and built a satellite that serves as a "listening post" in orbit. Using an analysis device, it evaluates frequency usage directly on site and feeds the information into the system. The interactive map offers a realistic globe view and a map view. You can set the frequency bandwidth and sort it by date. "The individual recordings are available to everyone: you can view them individually on the website or download the data to evaluate them yourself," says Burnicki. There is also the option of requesting additional spectral recordings using a form in order to examine specific regions or frequencies. "The freely accessible database of our research mission is unique in the world and offers immense advantages for both space travel and science," explains Burnicki. Researchers can see, for example, which signals with which properties are present in orbit and can thus gain insights into the frequency environment in orbit. Satellite operators and ground stations can use the interactive map to determine which frequency bands are particularly busy in a region and switch to a different frequency or enter into cooperation. "If, for example, there is a lot going on on a frequency over Australia at a certain time, that does not mean that the same is true in Europe at the same time," says the researcher. In such a case, satellite operators could enter into cooperations with ground stations in less busy regions.

Roscosmos tasks two companies with building constellation of earth sensing satellites According to Ilshat Gubaidullin, the system's chief designer, the first two satellites will be built on NPO Lavochkin's Karat-200 platform, which has proven its reliability MOSCOW, July 2/ Roscosmos said its two companies, the Russian Space Systems and NPO Lavochkin, will team up to develop a constellation of earth observation satellites. Called Avtograf, the system will include 72 Pixel-VR satellites, the state corporation said in a statement. "The new constellation of satellites, which is being built by Russian Space Systems holding company in collaboration with NPO Lavochkin, will be the basis for an advanced space system of Earth remote sensing called Avtograf. Small-sized Pixel-VR spacecraft will fill the niche of monitoring infrastructure objects in ultra-high spatial resolution," the statement said. According to Ilshat Gubaidullin, the system's chief designer, the first two satellites will be built on NPO Lavochkin's Karat-200 platform, which has proven its reliability, while the rest will be built on a new platform with a focus on mass production. "Subsequently, the constellation will be increased to 14 Pixel-VRs in seven planes, with two satellites in each. This system architecture will ensure maximum efficiency of area imaging of up to 240,000 square kilometers per day or imaging of one area two times per day," Gubaidullin said. He added that the constellation will be ultimately expanded to 72 satellites. Pixel-VR Last year, Roscosmos said work was underway to build a small remote sensing satellite, Pixel-VR, with a spatial resolution of 50 cm. The state corporation said at the time that the first such device would be produced by 2025 and launched in 2026. The satellites will conduct highly detailed observation of the Earth's surface in the visible and near-infrared range from a sun-synchronous orbit at the altitude of 500-700 kilometers. The dimensions of one satellite are 1 x 1 x 1.9 meters. #business #finance #financialservices

India's Pixxel is set to launch three of its six hyperspectral imaging satellites aboard a SpaceX rocket from California on Tuesday, the first such network in the country's nascent private space sector, Pixxel's chief told Reuters. The satellites will be placed in a sun-synchronous orbit at roughly 550 km, with the remaining three slated for deployment in the second quarter of the year.

Dragonfly Aerospace partners with LatConnect 60 for advanced SWIR imaging satellites: Los Angeles CA (SPX) Jan 13, 2025 Dragonfly Aerospace has announced a partnership with Australian Earth observation company LatConnect 60 to supply three Chameleon SWIR (shortwave infrared) imagers for their SWIRSAT satellites. Supported by the Australian Space Agency and the Western Australian State Government, the SWIRSAT satellite project aims to enhance Earth observation capabilities, with the satellites set for a 2026 launc #neuco

New Technologies developed by ISRO for Spadex Mission! *Docking mechanism, *A suite of four rendezvous and docking sensors, *Power transfer technology, *Indigenous novel autonomous rendezvous and docking strategy, *Inter-satellite communication link (ISL) for autonomous communication between spacecraft, incorporated with inbuilt intelligence to know the states of the other spacecraft, *GNSS-based Novel Relative Orbit Determination and Propagation (RODP) processor to determine the relative position and velocity of the other spacecraft. Docking Mechanism: The docking mechanism is a low-impact docking system (approach velocity is in the order of 10 mm/s), androgynous (docking systems are identical for both spacecraft, Chaser & Target), and is a peripheral docking system (concept similar to the International Docking System Standard used by other agencies for human missions). The mechanism is smaller (450 mm) with one degree of freedom for extension and uses two motors compared to the IDSS (800 mm) on a hexapod with 24 motors. Sensor Suite: The additional sensor suite in this mission includes Laser Range Finder (LRF) and Corner Cube Retro Reflectors to work for a range of 6000 to 200 m for determining range (R). The set of Rendezvous Sensors (RS) is used in the range of 2000 to 250 m and from 250-10 m. RS provides the relative position (x, y, z) while LRF determines both relative position and velocity independently. Proximity and Docking Sensor (PDS) provides relative position and velocity over a range of 30 m to 0.4 m. Laser Diodes (LDs) are used as targets for RS & PDS. A video monitor is used in the 20 to 0.5 m range and it will capture the video of the docking event. A Mechanism Entry Sensor (MES) is used from 8 cm to 4 cm to detect chaser entry into the target spacecraft during docking. ISL-Enabled GNSS-Based RODP: Like all ISRO satellites in low-Earth orbit, both the SpaDeX spacecraft carry a differential GNSS-based Satellite Positioning System (SPS), which provides PNT (Position, Navigation, and Timing) solutions for the satellites. In SpaDeX, a novel RODP processor is included in the SPS receiver, which allows accurate determination of the relative position and velocity of the Chaser and the Target. By subtracting the carrier phase measurements from the same GNSS satellites in both Chaser and Target SPS receivers, highly accurate relative states of the two satellites are determined. The VHF/UHF transceivers in both satellites aid this process by transferring the GNSS satellite measurements from one satellite to the other. Rendezvous and Docking Algorithms: As the spacecraft are in circular orbit, and any addition or reduction of velocity to the satellites will result in orbit change, the V-bar strategy using n-Pulse, Glideslope and Proportional and Velocity ( PV) guidance algorithms are employed to reduce the ISD between the satellites after 5 km ISD and hold at fixed ISDs to evaluate the sensors and software, and finally docking.

Researchers have invented a technique that enables low Earth orbit satellite antennas to manage signals for multiple users at once, slashing costs and simplifying designs for communication satellites. Low-orbit satellites could soon offer millions of people worldwide access to high-speed communications, but the satellites’ potential has been stymied by a technological limitation – their antenna arrays can only manage one user at a time. The one-to-one ratio means that companies must launch either constellations of many satellites, or large individual satellites with many arrays, to provide wide coverage. Both options are expensive, technically complex, and could lead to overcrowded orbits. For example, SpaceX went the “constellation” route. Its network, StarLink, currently consists of over 6,000 satellites in low-Earth orbit, over half of which were launched in the past few years. SpaceX aims to launch tens of thousands more in the coming years. Now, researchers at Princeton engineering and at Yang Ming Chiao Tung University in Taiwan have invented a technique that enables low-orbit satellite antennas to manage signals for multiple users at once, drastically reducing needed hardware. In a paper published June 27 in IEEE Transactions on Signal Processing, the researchers describe a way to overcome the single-user limit. The strategy builds on a common technique to strengthen communications by positioning antenna arrays to direct a beam of radio waves precisely where it’s needed. Each beam carries information, like texts or phone calls, in the form of signals. While antenna arrays on terrestrial platforms such as cell towers can manage many signals per beam, low-orbit satellites can only handle one. The satellites’ 20,000 miles-per-hour speed and constantly changing positions make it nearly impossible to handle multiple signals without jumbling them. To deal with that limitation, the researchers developed a system to effectively split transmissions from a single antenna array into multiple beams without requiring additional hardware. This allows satellites to overcome the limit of a single user per antenna array. The new technique can be incorporated into existing satellites that are already built, according to Poor. “But a key benefit is that you can design a simpler satellite,” he said. #satellite #networks #constellation #communications #space #engineering #optimization #impact https://lnkd.in/gzU7ezsN

India's Pixxel is set to launch three of its six hyperspectral imaging satellites aboard a SpaceX rocket from California on Tuesday, the first such network in the country's nascent private space sector, Pixxel's chief told Reuters. The satellites will be placed in a sun-synchronous orbit at roughly 550 km, with the remaining three slated for deployment in the second quarter of the year.

🚀 Our paper "Nonlinear optimal control for triangular tethered multi-satellite formations" has been accepted for publication in Advances in Space Research. https://lnkd.in/eY3PWP8c 🎛 The study proposes a nonlinear optimal control method for the control and stabilization problem of tethered multi-satellite systems. 🛰 Tethered satellite systems consist of several satellites which are connected with the use of elastic tethers, and which aim at accomplishing a specific mission. 📡 Tethered satellites have found use in satellite communication networks and in tasks of precise observation of earth and space. As a case study, a triangular constellation of tethered satellites is presented in the paper. #space #robotics #control #research