Space Segment
The four satellites are in sun-synchronous polar orbits with a 97.9° inclination at a nominal altitude of 619 km and an orbital period of 97.2 minutes. The local time ascending node at the equator is 0600. The expected operating life of each satellite is estimated to be 5 years. Each satellite repeats the same ground track on the Earth every 16 days and all of the satellites follow the same ground track. They cross the equator at 6 AM and 6 PM local-time each day. The satellites are phased in the same orbital plane, with COSMO-SkyMed's 1, 2 and 4 at 90° to each other and COSMO-SkyMed 3 is at 67.5° from COSMO-SkyMed 2. This results in varied intervals between the satellites along the same ground track of between 1 and 15 days. The sun-synchronous orbit is used to keep the solar cells illuminated at all times.
The satellites main components are:
- Two solar array for 3.8 kW at 42 V DC
- Stabilization, navigation and GPS systems
- Synthetic aperture radar working in X band
- 300 Gbit on-board memory and 310 Mbit/s data-link with ground segments
The radar antenna is a phased array that is 1.4 m wide x 5.7 m long. The system is capable of both single- and dual-polarization collection. The center frequency is 9.6 GHz with a maximum radar bandwidth of 400 MHz.
Read more about this topic: COSMO-Sky Med
Famous quotes containing the word space:
“Through space the universe encompasses and swallows me up like an atom; through thought I comprehend the world.”
—Blaise Pascal (1623–1662)