Space based Earth Observation (EO) consists of satellites equipped with sophisticated sensors which gather petabytes of data about our planet. This data enables better management of the Earth, our environment and resources. It also plays a key role in delivering timely and strategic information to emergency response and security services.
The EU has the world’s largest and most ambitious EO programme, Copernicus, which is composed of a constellation of Sentinel satellites that work together to give the most complete data set of the planet ever in existence. It is expected to produce in excess of ten petabytes of data each year when fully operational. Combined with in situ EO data and third party satellite EO partner services Copernicus will become the third largest data provider in the world.
One of the main challenges facing current and future EO missions and downstream services relates to the management – i.e. the transport, processing, storage and exploitation – of this ever‐increasing volume of data. Perhaps the most significant aspect of this challenge concerns the transportation of the data from space to ground and to enable a flexible network approach to delivering tailored data sets to end‐users in near real‐time as per request. Particularly time‐sensitive data, such as in emergency response cases, which are often in remote locations cut off from terrestrial communications services.
Radio frequency (RF) communications have been the stalwart of satellite communications from the beginning, but with demand for more bandwidth than RF can provide – and for greater security – things are beginning to change. The European Space Agency’s (ESA) new ScyLight Programme, for example, was created in response to the satellite industry’s demand for the development of technologies for free space optical communications with lasers (Lasercom).
Laser communications are most widely used through a global network of fibre‐optical cables running between cites and across oceans. This infrastructure forms the backbone of our telecoms and data services; without it there would be no internet. However, today’s fibre infrastructure is going to need a serious upgrade in order to meet the challenging data environment of the next decade and beyond. Satellites equipped with optical communications will be key to augmenting the world's capacity for transporting data.
mBryonics is developing an optical satellite network architecture around its reliable and low error rate optical links, enabled by adaptive optic atmospheric mitigated feeder links. Power efficient optical links with adaptive optics allow the use of smaller satellites for high throughput data downlinks. Commercial EO operators are beginning to demonstrate that these smaller satellite platforms, known as CubeSats/NanoSats that are the size of a shoe box, are reaching a level of maturity and sophistication that emphasises the important role these spacecraft will play in the future of EO. Not to mention Remotely Piloted Aircraft Systems/High Altitude Pseudo Satellites. We call this optical satellite network architecture and distributed optical ground segment RAVEN: Real-time Access to a Virtual Earth observation Network. RAVEN is an end-to-end system architecture that will enable integration of satellite services into terrestrial applications and future networks, such as the 5G ecosystem.
End-users of EO data are generally not concerned with how the data gets to them. Much the same way users of Satellite-Navigation do not concern themselves with understanding how it works - only that it should reliably get them from point A to point B and in the fastest time possible. The key parameters being requested by end-users for EO services is that the data is 'fresh' and/or that it is a value added product of qualitative data and analyses. For example, analysts monitoring deforestation do not want dozens of images of forests. They want a product that tells them 'this is how many trees have been cut down' in a particular time frame and the location of where it is happening. Value added EO products are now created through computer algorithms and use new tools such as machine learning and artificial intelligence. This process still takes time and so it is therefore critical that every step of the data transport chain in the E.O. eco-system is made to be as efficient and 'intelligent' as possible. This is the main objective of the RAVEN project.
The EO industry is undergoing a significant evolution and revolution, where it is shifting from being a provider of raw data to a provider of quantitative analysis. The former requires a highly trained end user to be able to turn the data into actionable information for a specific use case and the latter democratises access to EO services as well as enable new market verticals and integration into wider information systems and eco-systems. There are strong synergies with the evolution of the location-based services industry. As the industry matures in this direction, access to real-time data from remote sensors becomes increasingly important - data is the fuel for this market and the data supply chain needs to be made as efficient as possible. This becomes an ever more prescient point as the quantity of data collected continues to increase at a significant pace. Integration with the 5G eco-system will also be vital in the evolution of the satellite ground segment.
For further information about mBryonics and why lasercom is coming of age please read our booklet:
http://www.paneuropeannetworks.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/2PENWEB-mBryonics-22601-web-booklet.pdf(opens in new window)
