APPLICATION OF COLLABORATIVE AUTONOMOUS CONTROL AND THE OPEN PROTOTYPE FOR EDUCATIONAL NANOSATS FRAMEWORK TO ENABLE ORBITAL CAPABILITIES FOR DEVELOPING NATIONS

Abstract

Prosperous nations enjoy the benefits of orbital remote sensing data products. The spacecraft that provide this imagery are, predominately, large and expensive, placing them out of reach of most small or developing nations. Small spacecraft, however, represent a new paradigm for remote sensing applications. A cluster of small spacecraft can be used to capture imagery which can be super-resolved to rival the performance of larger and significantly more expensive spacecraft (compared to the whole small spacecraft constellation). Alternately, the group can be spaced to provide higher temporal coverage. This paper presents work on three synergistic topics. First, it covers work on orbital super-resolution and mosaicking. Second, it presents work on a set of protocols that can be utilized to share tasks between multiple spacecraft. Finally, the synergy of these two aforementioned topics is considered and a collaborative mission design to enable a constellation of heterogeneous spacecraft, prospectively with different owners, to collaborate to collect and process data for direct use by users in a developing country is presented.