Low-cost rapid-deployment high-performance visible and NIR sensors for small satellites (Conference Presentation)

There is an established need for low-noise, fast frame rate, high-resolution sensors for New Space earth-observing missions. However, there is a dearth of space-qualified, commercially available sensors. Until recently, high-performance sensors have been restricted to large satellites. These sensor systems have been physically large and heavy with high power consumption requirements. Furthermore, the large satellite programs are costly and have long, multi-year development schedules. The novel sensor strategy presented meets the needs of a wide range of small satellite requirements that require low SWaP-C, and with availability within months rather than years. These sensors are flexible enough to address a variety of push broom time delay integration (TDI) scanner formats used in earth observing payloads and are available for panchromatic and multispectral applications. Formats up to 32K pixel swath can be fabricated with this technology.