Nanosatellite swarm missions in low Earth orbit using laser propulsion

Many missions could benefit from the exploitation of very low height orbits, including Earth observation, atmospheric measurement and space weather research missions. However satellite's lifetime decreases very quickly when the mission requires to orbit into the dense layers of the atmosphere. The mission performance could be enhanced using innovative propulsion techniques, counteracting the effect of atmospheric drag. Among these, laser propulsion potentially offers great weight and power savings, obtained by separating the propulsion system energy source from the propelled satellite. The energy source for the propulsion system is a pulsed laser beam generated remotely, while only collecting mirrors and ablative material are necessary on the target spacecraft. A mission architecture for very low altitude nanosatellite swarms using a space-based pulsed laser propulsion is described. A simplified laser-sustained re-orbiting maneuver sequence is proposed, leading to a straightforward evaluation of the maneuver times, showing that the laser propulsion system is suitable for low altitude nanosatellite missions. (C) 2012 Elsevier Masson SAS. All rights reserved.