SDI Space Systems Catalog [DO NOT POST]

[The Technocratic Syndicalists]

MicroEye

General Characteristics:

• Function: Multispectral Imaging Satellite
• Dimensions: 3.6 m x 0.5 m x 1.1 m
• Launch Mass: 100 kg
• Electrical Power: 250 W
• Attitude Control: 3-axis momentum biased
• Propulsion: 4x gold gas thrusters
• Telemetry: S Band

Instruments:

• Multispectral Imager (0.35 m telescope 0.75 m resolution, 8 spectral bands)
  
  • Band 1 Coastal Blue (0.40 - 0.45 µm)
  • Band 2 Blue (0.45 - 0.51 µm)
  • Band 3 Green (0.51 - 0.58 µm)
  • Band 4 Yellow (0.58 - 0.62 µm)
  • Band 5 Red (0.63 - 0.69 µm)
  • Band 6 Red edge (0.71 - 0.74 µm)
  • Band 7 Near-IR 1 (0.77 - 0.89 µm)
  • Band 8 Near-IR 2 (0.86 - 1.04 µm)

Orbital parameters:

• Orbit height: 500 km
• Orbit inclination: 51.64^o
• Design life: 2 years

Overview:

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MicroEye is an electro-optical imaging microsatellite manufactured by SDI Space Systems which is designed to be capable of providing on-demand multispectral imagery with a tactically useful resolution which it can then downlink directly to military commanders and intelligence centers in the same pass (<10 minutes within being tasked) without the use of a satellite or ground based relay network.

Instruments:

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Multispectral Imager: The primary instrument of the MicroEye is a 35 centimeter optical telescope mounted to the spacecraft with three three aft hard-points which is mated with an SDI deigned 40,000 pixel TDI line scan Silicon CCD camera which is capable of imaging in panchromatic (Pan) mode in the 0.45 - 0.80 µm spectral range or in multispectral (MS) mode with 8 spectral bands. From an altitude of 500 kilometres the satellite's multispectral imager can image a 5.8 x 3.8 km area with a ground resolution of 0.75 - 1.0 meters. Images from the camera are compressed into an NITF format where they can be stored on the spacecraft (up to 600 images) and/or transmitted in real time to a ground station for exploitation.

Spacecraft:

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Satellite Bus:The Microeye uses a proprietary SDI designed satellite bus which measures 0.5 m x 0.5 x 1.1 m before solar panel deployment with a launch mass of 100 kilograms including the multispectral imager payload. Electrical power is provided by five deployable solar panels which combined provide up to 250 watts of electrical power to the satellite's electrical power subsystem (EPS). The electrical power subsystem also includes a 16 cell Lithium Ion (Li-Ion) battery made from four 4-Cell commercial laptop batteries which have been wired together.

Attitude Control & Propulsion: The spacecraft's Attitude Determination And Control Subsystem (ADACS) consists of a single star tracker, eight coarse sun sensors placed around the spacecraft body, a 9-axis inertial measurement unit (IMU) including 3-axis MEMS gyros and a 3-axis magnetometer, a GPS receiver, and an attitude control system consisting of three reaction wheels and three magnetic torque rods which can slew the satellite at a rate of up to 3°/s to off-nadir imaging angle of up to 30 degrees° with a pointing accuracy of less than 0.15°. Spacecraft propulsion is via a cold-gas propulsion subsystem which contains two composite-overwrapped pressure vessels storing compressed nitrogen gas, twin pressure regulators, a magnetic latch valve, and four outward-canted gold gas thrusters mounted at the rear corners of the spacecraft which provide 3-axis propulsion and torque control.

Communications: The spacecraft's communications system consists of two S-band (2200.5 MHz – 2394.5 MHz) quadrifilar helix antennas (QHAs) on the nadir end of the spacecraft (one transmit and one receive) and two S-band patch antennas on the zenith end of the spacecraft (also one transmit and one receive) which are used for 2-way communications with ground stations at any satellite attitude. Transmitted data is modulated using offset quadrature phase shift keying (OQPSK) modulation with a maximum data downlink rate of over > 1 Mbps.

Ground Control:

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To use the satellite a ground commander first determines the GPS grid coordinates of an area he wished to image (up to 5.8 x 3.8 km) which he then relays using a tactical command post with satellite uplink capability. At each command post requests for imagery from different commanders are and merged and prioritized with imagery requests from other commanders in the same theater where they are then relayed to the nearest MicroEye satlelite as it rises over the theater area. The command software on the satellite processes the received imaging requests and then actuates the satellite using its attitude control system to capture imagery of the target areas with an optimized set of attitude slews, snapping imagery of each target area before rapidly slewing to the next target. Images taken are streamed in real time back to tactical command posts on the ground which then transmits the data back to the requesting commander, the entire process from image request to receiving imagery taking less than 10 minutes.

[The Technocratic Syndicalists]

STARSCAN

General Characteristics:

• Function: Space Based Radar Satellite
• Dimensions: 24.5 m x 2.5 m x 4.3 m
• Launch Mass: 2,500 kg
• Electrical Power: 7.0 kW
• Attitude Control: 3-axis momentum biased
• Propulsion: 6x monopropellant hydrazine thrusters, 1 N each
• Telemetry: S/Ka Band

Instruments:

• Electronically Scanned Radar (10.0 GHz frequency, 0.3 m resolution spotlight, 1.0 m resoluton scanSAR, 3.0 m resolution stripmap)
• Advanced Microwave Scanning Radiometer (6.0 MHz frequency, 25 km resolution)
• Advanced Radar Scatterometer (90 GHz frequency, 5 km resolution)

Orbital parameters:

• Orbit height: 1,000 km
• Orbit inclination: 53 ^o
• Design life: 20 years

Overview:

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STARSCAN is a space based radar system designed by SDI Space systems which is designed to provide high resolution synthetic aperture radar (SAR) and high-range-resolution moving target indication (HRR-MTI) capability.

Instruments:

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Electronically Scanned Radar:The primary sensor of STARSCAN is an X-band (10.0 GHz center frequency, 1 GHz bandwidth) active electronically scanned array (AESA) radar with a 16.0 x 2.5 m antenna which contains 89,600 radiating elements fed by a total of 2,800 gallium nitride (GaN)-on-diamond T/R modules (TRMs) with individual digital receiver/exciter (DREX) units feeding into a common digital beamformer. The radar is capable of steering electronically +/- 45°in elevation (perpendicular to the ground track) and +/- 21° in azimuth (parallel to the ground track) and can also use its attitude determination & control system (ADCS) to roll up to 30° for enhanced SAR coverage on either side of the satellite's ground track. Using its ADCS the satellite can also spin 360°around its vertical axis to allow detection of ground targets in any direction in GMTI mode. Design radar duty cycle is 15% with an average transmit power of 1,500 watts and a peak power of 10,000 watts. Antenna polarization options are varied based on the combination of operation modes selected and include single (HH or VV or HV or VH), dual (HH and VV, VV and VH, or HH and VV), and quad (HH+VV+HV+VH) polarization. From a designed orbit altitude of 1,000 kilometers the radar has a maximum slant range of 2,800 kilometers and is capable of operating in four interleaved modes; HRR-MTI (high-range-resolution moving target indicator) mode which can scan across up to 2,00,000 km2/hr of terrain while tracking vehicles or vessels moving between 4 and 100 kph, stripmap SAR/MTI mode which can image up to 700,000 km2/hr of terrain with 3.0 meter ground resolution while simultaneously tracking vehicles or vessels moving between 4 and 100 kph, Scanning synthetic aperture radar (ScanSAR) mode which can image up to 100,000 km2/hr of terrain with 1.0 meter ground resolution, and spotlight SAR which can image up to 2,400 km2 areas per hour with 0.3 meter ground resolution. Additional capabilities include the ability to image moving targets in MTI modes using Inverse synthetic-aperture radar (ISAR) to within 0.3 meter resolution and the ability to geolocate target tracks in MTI modes and pixels in SAR modes to within 50 meters accuracy. For detecting moving vehicles or vessels in the presence of ground or sea clutter the MTI modes of the radar employ space time adaptive processing (STAP) which simultaneously samples the received radar returns from multiple independent azimuth and elevation channels and utilizing the independent doppler returns from each channel cancels out distributed clutter returns and other as interference sources.

Spacecraft:

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Satellite Bus:The STARSCAN uses an SDI Space Systems RadarSat satellite bus which is designed by SDI for use with both commercial and military radar payloads. The RadarSat spacecraft measures 2.0 by 2.0 by 4.3 meters and includes two five-panel deployable solar arrays containing triple-junction gallium-arsenide solar cells which provide a combined 7,000 watts of power which supply network of lithium-ion batteries designed to store enough charge for 30 minutes of radar operation per 105-minute orbit. The spacecraft's thermal control system (TCS) consists of passive multilayer insulation blankets and an active thermal control system uses a network of conductive coldplates and heat pipes along with a set of radiators on the space facing side of the spacecraft fuselage.

Attitude Control & Propulsion: The spacecraft is three-axis stabilized using its attitude determination & control system (ADCS) which includes two CCD detector star trackers, a 12-channel dual frequency GPS receiver, an inertial measurement unit (IMU) which provides +/-0.02º attitude determination, and a propulsive attitude control system containing five reaction wheels (four active including two roll wheels, one spare for redundancy), magnetic torque rods, and a series of six 1.0 N thrust Hydrazine monopropellant thrusters which provide +/- 0.05º attitude control capability. The six Hydrazine monopropellant thrusters are also used to maneuver the spacecraft into its correct operational orbit after separation from its launch vehicle, to maintain the satellite's altitude within +/- 1 kilometer of its designed orbital altitude, for drag compensation, and to perform any collision avoidance maneuvers.

Communications: The STARSCAN is designed to downlink radar data using a Ku band (14.40-14.93 uplink and 15.15-15.35 GHz downlink) SDI tactical high bandwidth datalink (THBD) compatible downlink which can downlink radar imagery at up to 1.096 Gbps with with binary phase-shift keying (BPSK) downlink modulation to any ground, air, or maritime platform equipped with an SDI tactical high bandwidth datalink (THBD) receiver. Satellite telemetry and housekeeping data is transmitted via a separate S band communications system with two parallel S-band channels with a combined downlink rate of 512 kps and a command uplink rate of 4 kbps. The satellite also includes a laser communications terminal (LCT), an intensity modulation and direct detection (IM/DD) optical communication system with a 1.55 µm vertical-cavity surface-emitting laser (VCSEL) with a peak transmit power of 1.0 W which lets the satellite communicate with other LEO satelltes at distances up to 6,000 kilometers and with ground stations at distances up to 1,500 kilometers with a data transfer rate of 10 Gbit/s with homodyne BPSK (Binary Phase Shift Keying) optical modulation. The laser communications terminal itself weighs 40 kilograms and includes an optics unit (OU) with the 13 cm diameter laser telescope and both course and fine pointing mechanisms and a frame unit which contains the laser subsystem with twin solid-state laser diode pump modules, pointing, acquisition and tracking (PAT) controller, and EPC (Electrical Power Conditioner) module. The LCT also includes a 10 kg heat pipe radiator mounted to the frame unit for thermal management.

[The Technocratic Syndicalists]

MEWSAT-High

General Characteristics:

• Function: Missile Early Warning Satellite
• Dimensions: 14.8 m x 6.8 m x 6.0 m
• Launch Mass: 4,800 kg
• Electrical Power: 2.8 kW
• Telemetry: S/Ka Band

Instruments:

• Triple band (SWIR, MWIR, STG) HgCdTe scanning focal plane array
• Triple band (SWIR, MWIR, STG) HgCdTe starring focal plane array

Orbital parameters:

• Orbit height: 35,970 km
• Orbit inclination: 24 ^o

[The Technocratic Syndicalists]

TRS - 1A

General Characteristics:

• Function: Hyperspectral Imaging Satellite
• Dimensions: 5.3 m x 7.9 m x 7.9 m
• Launch Mass: 2,500 kg
• Electrical Power: 3.75 kW
• Attitude Control: 3-axis momentum biased
• Propulsion: 12x monopropellant hydrazine thrusters, 1 N each
• Telemetry: X/S Band

Instruments:

• Hyper Spectral Imager (1.1 m mirror, 0.25 m resolution, 280 spectral bands)
  
  • Visible band Si scanning focal plane array (40 bands, 11.4nm spacing)
  • NIR HgCdTe scanning focal plane array (80 bands, 11.4nm spacing)
  • SWIR HgCdTe scanning focal plane array (80 bands, 11.4nm spacing)
  • MWIR HgCdTe scanning focal plane array (80 bands, 25nm spacing)

Orbital parameters:

• Orbit height: 617 km
• Orbit inclination: 97 ^o
• Design Life: 5 years

Overview:

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The TRS-1A is a hyperspectral imaging satellite designed by SDI Space Systems which is designed to provide high resolution, on demand hyperspectral imaging (HSI) capability to support military operations. The complete TRS-1A system consist of a space segment consisting a spacecraft with a hypersepctral imaging sensor payload and a ground segment consisting of an operations center, mission data center, and a mobile ground station.

Instruments:

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Hyperspectral Imager: The primary instrument of the TRS-1A is a hyperspectral whiskbroom imager which consists of a 110 centimeter diameter, 1605 centimeter focal length optical telescope with a rotating mirror which sweeps a scan line perpendicular to the flight direction of the satellite which is coupled to a electro-optical camera operating in four different spectral ranges (visible, NIR, SWIR, and MWIR) to produce hyperspectral imagery across 280 different individual sub-bands. The visible imager used in the system consists of a 40 x 640 pixel Silicon CCD which operates at 257 K in the 0.45-0.905 μm spectral range which is further divided into 40 sub-bands with a band spacing of 11.4 nm. The NIR imager employs a 80 x 640 pixel HgCdTe staring FPA which operates at 257 K in the 0.83 - 1.74 μm spectral range which is further divided into 80 sub-bands with a band spacing of 11.4 nm. The SWIR imager also employs a 80 x 640 pixel HgCdTe staring FPA which operates at 257 K in the 1.58 - 2.49 μm spectral range which is further divided into 80 sub-bands with a band spacing of 11.4 nm. The MWIR imager consists of a a 80 x 640 pixel HgCdTe staring FPA which is cryogenically cooled to 90 K using a stirling cyrocooler and operates in the 3.0 - 5.0 μm spectral range which is further divided into 80 sub-bands with a band spacing of 25 nm. From a designed orbit altitude of 617 km the hyperspectral imaging system has a swath width of 13.2 km and can image a 66.5 km x 112 km (mono) or 26.6 km x 112 km (stereo) area with a ground resolution of 0.25-0.30 meters and pixel geolocation accuracy to <3.5 meters with the ability to collect up to 680,000 square kilometers of imagery per day.

Spacecraft:

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Satellite Bus:The TRS-1A uses an SDI Space System's S 900 commercial satellite bus which consists of a hexagonal aluminum honeycomb structure 5.3 meters in length and 2.5 meters in diameter with a central cylinder used for the imaging payload and outer composite equipment panels used for the satellite's various subsystems. The satellite has six deployable solar panels measuring by 1.2 by 2.0 meters in size which fold against the sides of the spacecraft during launch and deploy after separation from the launch vehicle. The solar panels contain triple-junction Gallium-Arsenide (GaAs) solar cells which combined supply up to 3.75 kW of 28 VDC power to a a series of lithium-ion batteries inside the spacecraft rated at a combined 312 amp hours.

Attitude Control & Propulsion:The S 900 spacecraft is three axis stabilized using an ADCS (Attitude Determination and Control Subsystem) which uses two star trackers, coarse sun sensors, a gyro, a magnetometer, and a GPS receiver to sense the satellite's attitude and four magnetically suspended reaction wheels (three active, one spare), three magnetic torque rods, and a series of monopropellant hydrazine thrusters to provide pointing. The propulsion system consists of a blow-down hydrazine monopropellant system with a total of 12 thrusters rated at 1.0 N each connected to a central composite overwrapped propellant tank containing 300 kilograms of hydrazine monopropellant. The ADCS is capable of pointing the satellite up to 65° off-nadir with a pointing accuracy of less than 0.03°.

Communications:The satellite's RF communication system consists of an imagery & metadata downlink which downlinks sensor data in the X-band rate of 800Mbit/s, a housekeeping downlink which downlinks real time housekeeping data at 120kbit/s in the X band, and a combined command uplink and telemety downlink which operates in the S band with a data transfer rate of 64kbit/s. The satellite also has on-board image and data storage capability provided by 3,200 gigabytes (GB) solid state drive with EDAC-protected memory.

[The Technocratic Syndicalists]

OCULUS Enhanced Imaging Satellite

General Characteristics:

• Function: Optical Imaging/SIGINT Satellite
• Dimensions: 11.0 m x 10.5 m x 4.1 m
• Launch mass: 19,600 kg
• Electrical power: 5.7 kW
• Attitude control: three-axis momentum biased
• Propulsion:
  
  • 16x N2O4/MMH RCS thrusters, 18 N each
  • 2x N2O4/MMH main engines, 1000 N each
• Telemetry: V Band

Instruments:

• Three-mirror anastigmat telescope (3.2 m mirror, 0.08 m resolution)
  
  • Wide-Field-of-View Camera (WIDECAM)
    
    • 18 x Visible/NIR Si CCD, 4096 x 4096 px, 0.2 to 1.1 μm
  • High-Resolution Camera (HIGHCAM)
    
    • 2 x Visible/NIR Si CCD, 2048 x 4096 px, 0.2 to 1.1 μm
    • 1 x MWIR/LWIR HgZnTe FPA, 1040 x 1040 px, 3 to 5 and 8 to 12 μm
• 2 x Omnidirectional SIGINT Antennae (0.01 to 110 GHz)

Orbital parameters:

• Orbit height: 820 km
• Orbit inclination: 97 ^o
• Orbit life: 10-12 years

Overview:

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The OCULUS Enhanced Imaging Satellite is an advanced electro-optical and SIGINT reconnaissance satellite designed by SDI Space Systems.

Instruments:

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Telescope:The primary sensor of the OCULUS is a three-mirror anastigmat telescope (without the tertiary mirror) with a 3.2 meter f/1.2 primary mirror and no tertiary mirror. The primary mirror is refocused by a secondary meter mounted to a 6-axis actuated hexapod to give the telescope an f/8 overall focal ratio (25.6 m focal length) and a 1.8° field of view. Both primary and secondary mirrors are constructed from binary titania-silica ultra low expansion (ULE) glass with a silver coating and are polished to either 12nm RMS (primary mirror) and 16nm rms (secondary mirror). The telescope optics are housed in a forward optics assembly (FOA) which contains the secondary mirror contained in its secondary mirror support structure, secondary mirror support tubes which form part of the secondary mirror 6-axis hexapod drive, primary mirror contained in the forward metering structure, aft metering structure which contains the digital camera electronics, alignment tube drives which act to align the forward and aft metering structures, and the main mounts which connect the forward optics assembly to the spacecraft. All forward optics assembly structures are constructed from Invar-36,an iron-nickel alloy with an ultra-low coefficient of thermal expansion (CTE).

The telescope is surrounded by an outer barrel assembly (OBA), an octagonal-shaped passively cooled radioactive structure surrounding the telescope which acts as combination environmental shield and thermal shield for the telescope. The outer barrel assembly is constructed from a zero CTE boron/cyanate composite consisting of boron fibers embedded in a cyanate siloxane resin. The secondary mirror support structure, secondary mirror support tubes, and both forward and aft metering structure also include electrical heaters which are used to control and eliminate any thermal gradients inside the telescope's optics.

The optical telescope of the OCULUS has two camera systems, a wide-field-of-view camera (WIDECAM) used for strip imaging and a high-resolution camera (HIGHCAM) used for spot imaging. The WIDECAM contains an array of 18x 4096 x 4096 pixel (16MP total) visible/NIR Silicon CCDs detectors covering the 0.2 to 1.1 μm spectral range while the HIGHCAM contains twin 2048 x 4096 pixel Visible/NIR Silicon CCD detectors covering the 0.2 to 1.1 μm spectral range and a 1024 x 1024 pixel dual MWIR/LWIR QWIP focal plane array covering the 3 to 5 μm (MWIR) and 8 to 12 μm (LWIR) spectral ranges. With the WIDECAM areas up to 37 kilometers wide can be stereoscopically imaged while the HIGHCAM can image smaller areas with 8 centimeter resolution.

Spacecraft:

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Satellite Bus: The rear end of the OCULUS telescope is connected to an SDI Space System's designed Satellite Support Bus (SSB), a octagonal shaped structure 4.0 meters in diameter and 4.0 meters long which contains the satellite's attitude determination & control system (ADCS), propulsion system, electrical distribution and power system, and telemetry system. Electrical power for the satellite is provided by two radiation hardened gallium arsenide solar arrays with a total panel area of 16 m2 which provide up to 5.7 kW of electrical power to the satellite's electrical distribution and power system. The electrical distribution and power system contains four 60 amp-hour nickel-cadmium batteries each charged by one-half of each array which are used to power the SSB and the optical telescope payload.

Attitude Control & Propulsion: The OCULUS attitude determination & control system consists of a sensor subsystem with four course sun sensors, three CCD star trackers, twin 3-axis magnetometers, twin 6-axis inertial measurement units (IMUs), three CMOS horizon sensors, a GPS receiver, and a radar altimeter, and an actuation system with four reaction wheels and four magnetic torque rods which provide a 3-axis pointing accuracy of less than 0.01 arc seconds.The satellite's orbit-adjust propulsion system consists of two 1,000 N
N2O4/MMH (Monomethylhydrazine) primary propulsion engines mounted to the back of the SSB which are fed from total of six helium pressurized propellant tanks inside the SSB containing a total of 5,300 kg of N2O4/MMH propellant. The reaction control system consists of four modules with four 18 N N2O4/MMH thrusters each which are supplied from the same propellant tanks as the primary propulsion engines.

Communications: The communication systems of the OCULUS consists of a secure datalink which transmits satellite imagery and telemetry data using a retractable data relay dish operating in the V-band (60 GHz) to data relay satellites in geostationary orbit which then relay the imagery and telemetry data to ground stations using a Ka band download. As V-band radio frequencies are completely blocked by the atmosphere and thus not detectable from the ground the transmitting OCULUS satellite is thus not detectable by ground, air, or sea based ELINT or SIGINT systems.

[The Technocratic Syndicalists]

Liberty

General Characteristics:

• Function: Internet Satellite
• Dimensions: 2.8 m x 1.4 m x 10.0 m
• Launch Mass: 260 kg
• Electrical Power: 3.0 kW
• Attitude Control: 3-axis momentum biased
• Propulsion: 1x 90 mN hall-effect thruster
• Telemetry: Ka/Ku/V Band

Electronics:

• 2x Ku band phased array communications antennas (12.15 – 12.25 GHz downlink, 13.85 – 14.00 GHz uplink)
• 2x Ka band phased array communications antennas (27.5-29.1 GHz downlink, 29.5-30 GHz uplink)
• 2x V band parabolic antennas (37.5-37.75 GHz downlink, 47.2-47.45 GHz uplink)

Orbital parameters:

• Orbit height: 340 km
• Orbit inclination: 53.2 ^o

[The Technocratic Syndicalists]

MEWSAT-low

General Characteristics:

• Function: Missile Early Warning Satellite
• Dimensions: 14.8 m x 5.0 m x 3.6 m
• Launch Mass: 1,300 kg
• Electrical Power: 2.8 kW
• Telemetry: S/Ka Band
• Attitude Control: 3-axis momentum biased
• Propulsion: 2x CIF₅/N₂H₄ 25 N thrusters

Instruments:

• UV/Visible AlGaN scanning focal plane array, 0.2 to 1.1 μm
• MWIR/LWIR HgCdTe starring focal plane array, 3 to 5 and 8 to 15 μm

Orbital parameters:

• Orbit height: 1,300 km
• Orbit inclination: 84 ^o

[The Technocratic Syndicalists]

VORTEX

General Characteristics:

• Function: SIGINT/ELINT, Missile early warning
• Dimensions: 110 m x 110 m x 50 m
• Launch Mass: 6,000 kg
• Electrical Power: 6.0 kW
• Telemetry: S/Ka Band
• Attitude Control: 3-axis momentum biased
• Propulsion: 3x CIF₅/N₂H₄ thrustsers, 25 N each

Instruments:

• Steerable parabolic dish antenna, 2-2,500 MHz coverage
• Short Schmidt telescope, triple band (SWIR, MWIR, STG) HgCdTe scanning focal plane array

Orbital parameters:

• Orbit height: 2,100 km × 39,000 km
• Orbit inclination: 63 ^o

[The Technocratic Syndicalists]

Advanced Wideband SATCOM

General Characteristics:

• Function: Communications and data relay satellite
• Dimensions: 40.9 m x 7.0 m x 3.4 m
• Launch Mass: 6,100 kg
• Electrical Power: 15.0 kW
• Telemetry: S Band
• Attitude Control: 3-axis momentum biased
• Propulsion:
  
  • 1x SDI LR-4 NTO/MMH attitude control thruster, 490 N
  • 4x 25 cm Xenon ion thrusters, 165 mN each

Communications systems:

• 1x 1.55 um satellite laser communications terminal
• 10x mechanically steered Ka band (30.00 - 31.00 GHz uplink, 20.20 - 21.20 GHz downlink) parabolic antennas
• 8x electronically steered X band (7.90 - 8.40 GHz uplink, 7.25 - 7.75 GHz downlink) phased array antennas

Orbital parameters:

• Orbit height: 35,900 km
• Orbit inclination:0.00 ^o

[The Technocratic Syndicalists]

MicroSAR

General Characteristics:

• Function: Synthetic Aperture Radar Satellite
• Dimensions: 3.25 m x 0.6 m x 0.7 m
• Launch Mass: 85 kg
• Electrical Power: 750 W
• Attitude Control: 3-axis momentum biased
• Propulsion: 4x ion thrusters, 0.5 mN thrust each
• Telemetry: S/X Band

Instruments:

• Electronically Scanned Radar (9.6 GHz frequency, 1.0 m resolution spotlight, 3.0 m resolution stripmap)

Orbital parameters:

• Orbit height: 570 km
• Orbit inclination:97.68^o

Overview:

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MicroSAR is a synthetic aperture radar microsatellite designed by SDI Space Systems for maritime monitoring, earth observation, and various environmental purposes including marine oil spill tracking and sea ice monitoring.

Instruments:

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Synthetic aperture radar: The primary instrument of the MicroSAR satellite is an X band synthetic aperture radar. The radar employs an active electronically scanned array (AESA) antenna 3.2 meters long and 0.4 meters wide and operates with a center frequency of 9.6 GHz with 300MHz of instantaneous bandwidth and a maximum transmit power of 4.0 kw. The antenna is VV polarized and is capable of scanning electronically up to 35º on either side of the satellite's ground track. The radar can operate in one of three modes; stripmap mode, which can image areas 30 kilometers wide and 50 to 300 kilometers long (in 50 kilometer increments) 3.0 meter resolution, spotlight mode which can image an area 5 kilometers wide and 5 kilometers long with 1.0 meter resolution, and ScanSAR mode which can image a 100 by 100 kilometer area with 15 meter resolution or a 60 by 100 kilometer area with 8.0 meter resolution. The the MicroSAR satellite is designed to be launched into a sun-synchronous orbit with a height of 570 km and a 97.68 inclination which gives it 15 imaging orbits per day with a repeat cycle of 17 days.

Spacecraft:

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Satellite bus:The MicroSAR employ a proprietary satellite bus designed by SDI Space Systems. The spacecraft measures 0.8 m × 0.8 m × 0.6 m before antenna deployment and weighs 85 kilograms at launch. The spacecraft is 3-axis stabilized by an attitude control system (ACS) which contains three reaction wheels, three magnetic torque rods, a star tracker, eight coarse sun sensors, a GPS receiver, and a 9-axis inertial measurement unit (IMU). Propulsion is provided by total of four SDI Space Systems micro ion thrusters mounted around the body of the spacecraft. Each micro ion thruster provides up to 0.5 mN of thrust with a specific impulse of 5,000 s and a power draw of 40 watts at maximum thrust. Each thruster is supplied with 250 grams of propellant which gives the spacecraft a total delta V of around 300 m/s. Satellite power is provided by an extendable array of four solar panels which combined provide up to 750 watts of power for the satellite's electrical distribution system with energy storage being provided by a 30 amp hour lithium-ion battery.

Communications:The MicroSAR satellite is equipped with both X and S band communications systems which used for housekeeping and payload data downlink. Two S band antenna are used for housekeeping data downlink at 256 kbit/s and command uplink at 32 kbit/s while two X-band antenna are used for radar data downlink at 140 Mbits/s.

[The Technocratic Syndicalists]

Sealink

General Characteristics:

• Function: Submarine communication satellite
• Dimensions: 20.4 m x 2.5 m x 6.4 m
• Launch Mass: 3,300 kg
• Electrical Power: 4.5 kW
• Telemetry: Ka Band
• Attitude Control: 3-axis momentum biased
• Propulsion:
  • 1x 400 N MMH/NTO liquid apogee engine (LAE)
  • 8x 10N MMH/NTO reaction control thrusters
  • 8x 50 mN hall effect thrusters

Communications systems:

• 1x 430-530 nm blue-green laser communications terminal
• 2x Ka band (30.00 - 31.00 GHz uplink) parabolic receiving antennas

Orbital parameters:

• Orbit height: 35,900 km
• Orbit inclination:63.5 ^o
• Orbit life:15-17 years

Overview:

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Sealink is a geosynchronous communications satellite designed by SDI Space Systems which is designed to communicate with submerged Hydra class submarines using a blue-green laser system.

Communications:

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Blue-Green Laser:The blue-green laser communications system of the Sealink satellite employs a tuneable diode pumped Q-switched Nd:BEL (Neodymium-doped lanthanum beryllate) laser operating in the 430-530 nm (blue-green) spectral range. The transmitter system of the laser consists of 20 Q-switched Nd:BEL optical modules each containing 60 laser diode pump arrays (1,200 in total) which generate a laser with with an average optical power of 200 W. The total efficiency of the laser is 5%, necessitating 4,000 W of input power. The 3800 W of waste heat is dissipated by a heat pump cooling system which transfers heat from the laser modules to radiators mounted along the sides of the spacecraft. The emitted laser beam has a diameter of 2mm which from geosynchronous orbit diverges to a diameter of 10 kilometres at the ocean surface. The laser is designed with a 1000 bits/second spot rate with the ability to deliver a 100 bit message to all submerged Hydra class submarines in a 2,600,00,000 square kilometre area in an hour or in a 260,000 square kilometre area in six minutes. The satellite can also deliver a 5,000 bit message to a circular area 80 kilometers in diameter in six minutes. For retaining laser performance in the presence of clouds and varying sea conditions the laser employs variable beam dwell time, signal format, receiver time gate, adaptive signalling to tune the laser for maximum transitivity as a function of varying environmental and receiver conditions.

Spacecraft:

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Satellite Bus:The Sealink satellite uses an SDI Space System's S-500 commercial satellite bus, a communications satellite bus with a box structure measuring 2.0 m by 2.1 m by 1.9 m. Electrical power for the satellite is provided by two deployable solar arrays with three panels each which use gallium arsenide (GaAs) based triple junction cells providing a total of 4,500 W EOL power. Electrical power storage is via twin lithium ion batteries each with a capacity of 100 Ah.

Attitude Control & Propulsion: The Sealink satellite is 3-axis stabilized using an attitude determination & control system (ADCS) which includes twin CD-based star trackers, sun sensors, twin 9-axis inertial measurement units, and a GPS receiver for attitude determination and an attitude control system consisting of three reaction wheels and three magnetic torque rods which provide +/- 0.05º pointing accuracy. For orbit maintenance the satellite includes an electrical propulsion system with 4 main and 4 redundant ion thrusters each providing 50 mN of thrust with a specific impulse of 2,500 seconds. The thrusters are grouped into eight ion thruster modules (ITMs) each with an ion thruster, a hollow cathode neutralizer, and a flow control unit. The ion thrusters are fed from twin 60 liter composite overwrapped titanium propellant tanks containing 110 kg of xenon propellant, enough for approximately 4,800 hours of ion thruster operation. The liquid propulsion system of the satellite consists of a bipropellant MMH/NTO (Mono-Methyl Hydrazine / Nitrogen Tetroxide) pressure-fed liquid apogee engine with 420 N of thrust and an Isp of 320 sec which is used for GTO to GEO insertion and 4 main plus 4 redundant 10 N thrust bipropellant MMH/NTO reaction control thrusters (RCTs) with a 290 sec Isp. MMH and NTO propellant is stored in two 700 liter propellant tanks which combined carry 1,300 kg of propellant, providing around 1500 m/s of delta-V for the GTO to GEO insertion. The reaction control thrusters are used for attitude control during the GTO to GEO insertion and can also be used perform the transfer maneuver in the case of a LAE failure.

[Gallia-]

vortex looks like a ritz cracker