AltiCube+
A Low-Cost Long Fixed-Baseline Radar Altimeter Solution Based On CubeSats On-Orbit Assembly
J Guo (Space Systems Egineering)
P. Hoogeboom (TU Delft - Atmospheric Remote Sensing)
Jasper Bouwmeester (Space Systems Egineering)
G. Meoni (Space Systems Egineering)
Fernando Jose Calero-Nieto (Comet Ingeniería)
Juan Fayos (Comet Ingeniería)
Eric Bertels (Isispace)
Camille Pirat (European Space Agency (ESA))
More Info
expand_more
Other than for strictly personal use, it is not permitted to download, forward or distribute the text or part of it, without the consent of the author(s) and/or copyright holder(s), unless the work is under an open content license such as Creative Commons.
Abstract
Radar interferoinetry can be used to obtain sub-kilometer resolution over a swath at the expense of additional transmit power and a sufficiently long baseline to accommodate at least two antennas. This paper reports an innovative concept called AltiCube+, a low-cost long fixed-baseline interferometric radar altimeter based on CubeSats on-orbit assembly. The AltiCube+ concept consists of multiple 16U CubeSats, After an early operation and commissioning phase, these CubeSats will perform autonomous rendezvous and docking with each other via deployable booms to establish a long fixed-baseline, and then deploy antennas for an interferometric altimeter configuration. The uniqueness of AltiCube+ is on the potential scientific opportunities brought by two left and right looking interferometric altimeters with around 6 meter baseline (total system length is more than 8 m) and the sustainability due to its significantly low cost and short development lifecycle. If budget allows, multiple AltiCube+ systems with same or different altimetry capabilities can form a constellation to dramatically reduce the revisit time and, therefore, provide much better spatiotemporal coverage.