On Board Data Analysis and Realtime Information System

Abstract

For many information applications like alarming services or surveillance systems, reactivity is a very important criterion. This is also true for many applications based on satellite data, for example in the field of remote sensing or space system operation. These applications are currently bottlenecked by classical satellite operation, where contact to the satellite is only established within a few communication windows, when the satellite is in reach of an assigned ground station. The amount of time between collection of the data on the space system and having it available for ground-users can take from several hours up to days. At our institution, we are working on a cost-efficient method to decrease the latency until information, derived from satellite data, becomes available for usage on ground. The basic approach is trying to utilizing satellite based low-latency real-time telecommunication networks, designed for ground-based satellite phone usage in combination with on board information extraction. Information extraction on the satellite will be necessary as the telecommunication networks only offer a very limited data transfer bandwidth in the range of a few hundred bytes and the transmission of raw sensor data is not possible.