Architecting optimized spaceborne Earth observation missions

Spaceborne constellations composed by several heterogeneous platforms are an actual solution to undertake Earth Observation missions. However, designing such missions present problems due to the heterogeneity and the multiple design levels that must be considered. In this paper, a high-level methodology to address the design of a spaceborne Earth Observation constellation is outlined. In addition to the framework, this document presents an application of this methodology to a specific use-case, the Agriculture Hydric Stress for a worldwide coverage, and describes its results.
The framework and study presented in this paper was carried out in the frame of the ONION project, funded by the EU’s H2020 program, coordinated by Thales Alenia Space France. This project has been sponsored by the Spanish Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities, "Sensing with Pioneering Opportunistic Techniques", grant RTI2018-099008-B-C21 and by "CommSensLab" Excellence Research Unit Maria de Maeztu (MINECO grant MDM-2016-0600), and by ICREA Acadèmia award from the Generalitat de Catalunya
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