A hyperspectral constellation for hazard monitoring operating in LEO and VLEO (Conference Presentation)

We explore a constellation composed of hyperspectral small satellites deployed in Low Earth Orbit (LEO, 500 - 700 km), which sends early warnings to a second set of satellites operating in VLEO (100 to 300 km) to perform follow up observations. Once the warning and its respective location is received by the VLEO constellation, the closest VLEO satellite is tasked to image at higher spatial resolution the envisaged anomaly or target to be further characterized. The capabilities of this constellation will be explored in this talk. The overall constellation performance will be discussed along with the expected benefit of a "slow-down" system where objects are tracked via a maneuverable focal plane array to increase exposure times while compensating for platform instabilities. A large focus of the presentation will be on the applications that are enabled by a such as constellation system.