EO-ALERT: A SATELLITE ARCHITECTURE FOR DETECTION AND MONITORING OF EXTREME EVENTS IN REAL TIME

EO-ALERT: A SATELLITE ARCHITECTURE FOR DETECTION AND MONITORING OF EXTREME EVENTS IN REAL TIME

M. Kerr, S. Tonetti, S. Cornara, J. I. Bravo, R. Hinz, A. Latorre, F. Membibre, A. Ramos, S. Wiehle, O. Koudelka, E. Magli, R. Freddie, S. Fraile, C. Marcos

DEIMOS Space S.L.U., Tres Cantos – Madrid, Spain, Email: murray.kerr@deimos-space.com

Deutsches Zentrum für Luft- und Raumfahrt e.V., Germany

Technische Universität Graz, Graz, Austria

Politecnico di Torino, Turin, Italy

OHB Italia Spa, Milan, Italy

Deimos Imaging S.L.U., Spain

Agencia Estatal de Meteorología, Spain

Abstract

This paper presents the architecture and results achieved by the EO-ALERT H2020 project. EO-ALERT proposes the definition and development of the next-generation Earth Observation (EO) data processing chain, based on a novel flight segment architecture that moves optimised key EO data processing elements from the ground segment to on-board the satellite, with the aim of delivering the EO products to the end user with very low latency (in almost real-time). This paper presents the EO-ALERT architecture, its performance and hardware. Performances are presented for two reference user scenarios; ship detection and extreme weather nowcasting/monitoring. The hardware testing results show that, when implemented using Commercial Off-The-Shelf (COTS) components and available communication links, the proposed architecture can deliver EO products and alerts to the end user with a latency lower than one-point-five minutes, for both SAR and Optical Very High Resolution (VHR) missions, demonstrating the viability of the EO-ALERT concept and architecture.