An Imaging Satellite System for Tactical Applications

The Tactical Imaging Experiment and Demonstration System (TIDES) goal is to develop a small imaging satellite for tactical applications where the field commander controls the satellite and achieves a launch on demand at a reasonable cost. The TIDES imaging payload is two modified Schmidt cameras, coupled with linear charged couple devices capable of producing 5 meter resolution at a 700 km polar sun synchronous orbit. Innovations such as Vector Quantization (VQ) technology with a new developed codebook processing chip (CPC) demonstrates the ability to compress images at ratios of 12 to 1 or greater reducing satellite to ground datalink bandwidth, on-board storage and power while producing images of high quality. The satellite and payload designs contain no moving parts: achieving high reliability, low cost and requiring minimal operational support. The mobile ground station permits operations from any location and can be operated by a single operator with minimum technical training and expertise. This paper presents the TIDES study and prototype results.