Nebula Public Library

Persistent Responsive Real-Time Earth Observation small satellite constellation mission (PERTEO) is a study dedicated to provide a global democratic service to support disaster management. Earth observation and satellite-based communications play a key role to support disaster management targeting responsiveness and the persistence of the service. In the terminology of on-demand Copernicus services, responsiveness is determined by the lead-time and latency. The persistence is determined by the availability and by the revisit time of the service.

‘STARCOP’ is an initiative to use ML and multiple satellites of diverse detection capabilities to quickly detect methane leaks onboard and notify them in near-real-time. In this project we have developed ML models for automatic detection of methane in hyperspectral and multispectral imagery. Our hyperspectral model (HyperSTARCOP) is able to capture more than 90% of plumes in our test data while reducing the false positive rate by 39% when compared to state-of-the-art models.

This project is conceived at analysing a secured communication link between a space-based system and a maritime system. The final goal is to serve autonomous navigation vessels, with a possible extension to other smart commercial maritime services and to favour the process towards a highly and full digitalisation of the Port system. The autonomous ship is here considered from an operating point of view, although quite simple and with the purpose of understanding the impact on the telecommunication system. The initial focus is on three possible telecommunication solutions:

This activity investigates how mega-constellations can be used to provide low-Earth orbit (LEO) spacecraft with broadband low-latency services, a novel Concept with potential to disrupt spacecraft design, operation, and performance by allowing spacecraft to access mega-constellations’ enormous resources (Tbit/s throughputs) and global coverage at a lower cost than traditional data relay systems and ground station networks (two to fifty times cheaper, that is, a few hundred to a few thousand dollars per month for a daily net capacity from hundredths of Gbit up to almost ten Tbit).