A small satellite mission devoted to mid-low latitude earth observation

This paper aims at assessing the feasibility of a small mission devoted to observe the mid-low latitude regions. The satellite will be equipped with three optical sensors: a medium-high spatial resolution VIS-NIR multi-spectral sensor, allowing the surface monitoring and land-use and land-cover studies; a medium spatial-resolution 3-bands thermal (MIR-TIR) sensor allowing the surface temperature (LST, SST) estimate and hot-spots (fires, volcanic eruption, etc.) detection; a panchromatic VIS-NIR camera for night-time observation able to reveal artificial and natural lights. The selected orbit, called multi-sun-synchronous (MSS), represents an innovation with respect to the classical sun-synchronous orbit much suitable for observing tropical regions, allowing an enhanced revisit frequency. Further, such an orbit allows the observation of the same region of the Earth at different local-time. In this way, the diurnal cycle of surface temperatures can be reconstructed with a 2-hours local-time step. An analysis of the capability of the selected ground stations to acquire the data gathered by the remote sensing sensors has been carried out. Orbital perturbations have been taken into account and an estimate of the propellant required for ground track control has been performed in order to verify its compatibility with a small mission requirements.