Sir Martin Sweeting FRS

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Small Satellites Their emerging role in
international space security reducing tension
through participation?

• Sir Martin Sweeting FRS
• Group Chief Executive, SSTL
• Director, Surrey Space Centre
• UK

Space Security Conference 13- 14 November 2007
Institute for Defence Studies Analyses, New
Delhi, India The Centre for Defence
International Security Studies
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SmallSats and international stability

• Earth Observation satellites were originally
  developed by the military East West and
  succeeded in stabilising the Cold War
• Earth Observation from space used to be an
  activity exclusive to super-powers or wealthy
  nations due to the extremely high cost of the
  large satellites, their launch and operation in
  orbit
• Small satellites have made Earth observation from
  space accessible to virtually every nation
• Images lt3 metres GSD/pixel have military/security
  utility modern small satellites now provide
  this capability at greatly reduced cost
• Not only optical EO constellations small
  satellites providing SAR (Germany) and ELINT
  (France) now exist, although more expensive
• Small satellite missions provide non-aggressive
  situational awareness to avoid surprise thus
  defuse tension
• Microsatellites often quoted (by established
  space powers) as a proliferation threat but
  rather they are a disruptive technology

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Overview

• What are Small Satellites
• Introduction to Space _at_ Surrey
• Current small satellite capabilities
• Where is it leading?
• Implications for Security from Space

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What are Small Satellites?
Mass Cost Time Large 1000kg 200M 10yrs
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What do small satellites offer?

• Lower entry cost to space
• Quick response from concept to operation
  response space
• More missions within the same budget
• Constellations swarms become financially viable
  
• Enable responsive space
• Independent access to the high ground of space
• Stimulate
• - new commercial markets
• - new thinking regarding military space
• Like the PC space is now accessible to a far
  wider community
• Like the PC the advantage is by networking in
  numbers to increase temporal resolution/response
  and resilience

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How are they different?
Achieved through a different approach to space
leveraging the enormous investment in the
development of modern consumer products using
microelectronics MEMS and adapting them to use
in space
producing rapid-response, highly capable, yet
low-cost small satellites built using advanced
terrestrial technologies
Changing the economics of space
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Small satellites for responsive space?
There are 3 components to the responsive small
satellite capability

• Low cost, rapid small satellites
• Readily available low cost launches
• Low cost autonomous orbital operations

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Space at Surrey who are we?
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Space at Surrey what do we do?

• Small Satellites
• Design
• Build
• Integrate test
• Launch
• Operate

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Specialising in small satellites

• Satellites that are
• 6 600kg
• 15 24 months order-to-launch
• 5 25M typical cost

500kg
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SSTL Satellites in Orbit
CFEsat
27 satellites launched in 26 years since
1981 93 mission success
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Low Cost Launches
100 launch record over 20 launches on 9
different launchers
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Autonomous Orbital Operations

• Reduce operations lifetime running costs through
  autonomy
• Automated operator notification of anomalies
• Automated data routing
• Network of automated ground stations connected
  via the internet
• Constellation management

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What can small satellites do?

• Question If they are so small and low cost, then
  they cannot do anything useful?

Communications Technology Verification Earth
Observation Space Science Navigation Military
Civil applications
Indeed, they can do some things that are not
practical with large satellites!
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LEO Communications

• Digital SF comms to remote regions
• Real-time communications
• Advanced DSP payloads
• Signal monitoring analysis
• Single satellite provides global reach

French DGA ELINT Portuguese MoD
logistics tracking
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Microsatellites the Internet
UK-DMC carrying a Cisco router demonstrated the
power of microsatellites internet VMOC an IP-
based application for satellites, using an
available IP-based infrastructure first
demonstrated using UK-DMC to USAF at VAFB in 2004
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Technology Verification
USAF-STP FCT PICOSat

• Polymer batteries
• Ionospheric tomography
• Ultra-quiet platform
• 15-month manufacture
• 6M FFP contract
• Launched Sept. 2000
• Operational in orbit
• Controlled from USAFA SSTL groundstations

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Research
CFESat

• Mission will detect broad-band emission from
  different types of lightning
• Flight experiment LANLs new FPGA-based software
  radio for VHF/UHF spectrum monitoring

Launched on USAF ATLAS EELV Cape Canaveral
January 2007
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Space Weather
The effects of the space radiation environment on
modern COTS components
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Mini Micro-satellites for EO

• UoSAT-12 minisatellite (1998) demonstrated
  capability of low-cost small satellite EO
• 325kg launch mass
• Launched 1998 into 650km 56deg LEO
• Staring CCD arrays - COTS imagers
• 32-metre GSD in 4 bands (NIR, R,G,B)
• 10-metre GSD pan (24 km swath)
• Agile platform off nadir imaging
• 10M mission - including launch - funded by SSTL

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EO - minisatellite
Baghdad (32m GSD 4-band m/s UoSAT-12)
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Constellations Swarms

• Constellations and Swarms of small satellites
  enable an affordable capability to achieve
• Rapid revisit increased temporal resolution
• Contemporaneous data gathering data merging

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Disaster Monitoring Constellation

• Novel International Collaboration 5 countries
• 3 Cosmos launches into the same orbit
• Individual satellite ownership
• Collaborative operation
• Data sharing and exchange
• Mutual data exploitation

The whole is greater than the sum of the parts
global daily imaging capability
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Disaster Monitoring Constellation
Very wide swath imaging 600km at 32m GSD m/s
AlSat-1
Enables large areas to be covered on a daily basis
AlSAT-1
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DMC in Operation
Nevada Test Site (32m GSD 3-band m/s)
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UK-DMC Responsive imaging in Iraq
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DMC Indian Ocean Tsunami
DMC is a member of the International Charter
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DMC Sumatra before and after Tsunami
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DMC Katrina (USA)
Nigeria-DMC provided first images of Katrina
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DMC estimating the opium poppy crop
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High resolution microsatellites BEIJING-1

• Commercial procurement by Chinese Ministry of
  Science and Technology
• Mapping of Chinas land use every 6 months
• Ocean monitoring
• Inland water resources
• Agriculture (e.g. winter wheat production)
• Pollution
• Preparations for Beijing Olympics
• Launched in November 2005 fully operational
• Data information through commercial company
  inside China internationally

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High resolution microsatellites BEIJING-1
Small section of 3,000 km strip at 4-m GSD pan
from Beijing-1 microsatellite
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Pan-sharpened image BEIJING-1
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High resolution microsatellites TOPSAT

• 2.8-metre GSD resolution panchromatic
  5-metre GSD multispectral imaging
• Enhanced microsatellite 125 kg
• High performance ADCS
• - Time domain integration (TDI)
• - Agile, rapid slewing
• Rapid response imaging to mobile ground terminals
• 15M mission cost (including gndstn launch)

Launched 27 October 2005
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(No Transcript)
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High resolution microsatellite UK-TOPSAT
TopSat image of Los Angeles, USA
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High resolution microsatellite UK-TOPSAT
Aircraft in flight imaged from orbit
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Hyperspectral imaging

• SSTL CHRIS Camera
• Flown on ESA Proba mission
• 18- metre GSD
• 60 spectral bands
• 5 years in-orbit operation
• Helps counter-act camouflage

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Galileo GIOVE-A built for ESA
SSTL

• To secure Europes Galileo navigation system
• Needed to be operational before June 2006
• Built by SSTL in 30 months, 30M, launched on
  time
• Operational for 1.8 years transmitting Galileo
  signal from space 2.5 years planned operational
  lifetime
• Highly successful
• GIOVE-A2 commenced in 2007 (30M, 22-months)

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Galileo GIOVE-A launched for ESA
Galileo signals from space Jan2006
SSTL Mission Control
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Nanosatellite space situational awareness
launched in 2000
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Nanosatellite space situational awareness
9 month project cost 1M
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International co-operation
widening access to space
Nigeria Turkey
Algeria China Malaysia
Singapore Thailand Chile Portugal S.Korea
S. Africa Pakistan

• Launch first national microsatellite
  demonstrate its applications utility
• Train engineers as nucleus of a space agency
  industry
• Establish national space facilities capabilities

Algeria
Korea
within UK export regulations
Nigeria
Portugal
Malaysia
Chile
Thailand
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Beyond Earth orbit the Moon
UK SSTL-led initiative to change the economics
of exploration

• MoonLITE
• A polar orbiter for communication, navigation
  plus orbital remote sensing
• Multiple micro-penetrators (10
  kg each) for both far-side and near-side
  deployment and in-situ geophysics geochemistry
• Launch in 2011

SSTL SSC QinetiQ UCL MSSL OU Imperial Birbeck Sha
mpton PSSRI
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Whats next PalmSat

• lt1 kg mass - integrated, COTS-based design
• All subsystems comprise "credit-card sized" PCBs
• Use of highly integrated COTS VLSI and MEMS
  devices
• In-orbit inspection or Sentinels reduce
  tension
• Flying in Swarms

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Conclusions Small Satellites for Security
Small satellites have reached a level of
capability that is of military/security relevance
low costs rapid production timescales are
consistent with use in military/security
operations

• Constellation or swarm of small satellites with
  complementary sensors Electro-Optical, SAR,
  ELINT/SIGINT
• Providing capability for co-located,
  contemporaneous, comparable collection of data
  when required
• Performance parameters specified with
  complementary fields of regard to facilitate
  cueing fusion of data in network enabled context

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Conclusions Small Satellites for Security

• Space is no longer the preserve of super-powers
  it is accessible at an entry level to every
  nation in an affordable manner using COTS
  technologies
• The ability to have widespread, rapid and
  independent surveillance from space by many
  nations helps reduce surprise and
  misunderstandings
• Surveillance from space is non-aggressive (open
  skies policy)
• This can be achieved by numbers of low-cost small
  satellites especially working together in
  international cooperative constellations
• Security situational awareness for rapidly
  changing phenomena can be provided by
  microsatellites
• Proliferation of microsatellites have a
  positive role to play in reducing international
  tension and avoiding conflict through a
  surveillance capability and enabling real
  participation in global issues and the
  exploration of the solar system

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So, how to address Prof. Ben-Israel's road to
ruin? Gambling - microsatellites reduce the
risks of the unknown Technology - make us of
what we have (COTS) Women
- more women involved in space to add skills
(50 PhD students at SSC in space engineering are
women)
Change the economics of space
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Thank you
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Security reducing tension

• Pakistan India
• In 2005, media in Pakistan reported that India
  was amassing troops on the border
• Calls were made for Pakistan to respond
• If detailed up-to-date EO images had been
  generally available to the media it would have
  clarified that no such troop concentration had
  occurred

• China India
• A landslide in the Zanskar Mountains, a range of
  the Himalayas, blocked the Pareechu River in its
  course from the Tibet AR of China to the Himachal
  Pradesh State of northern India
• Initially, India challenged China for blocking
  its water supply
• China used the Earth observation from satellites
  to identify the landslide and rapidly defuse the
  situation with its neighbour