Persistent EO from VLEO

Earth Observant Inc.’s (EOI’s) Direct to Phase II work will further the development of their Low Flying Bus (LFB) by incorporating the DoD’s desire for near real-time transmission of satellite optical imagery to the warfighter. To accomplish this, EOI will analyze the entire imagery chain to ensure the best possible outcome for the warfighter. The payload will be designed and prototyped with special emphasis on understanding and documenting the entire data stream. A new Tasking, Collection, Processing, Exploitation, Dissemination (TCPED) architecture will be created to decrease data latency to the warfighter by moving the bulk of imagery chain processing from ground systems onto the spacecraft in the form of edge-computing capability. Once initially processed to a low level on-orbit, EOI will then provide the data directly to the warfighter.  Design and build a prototype optical assembly to demonstrate and verify EOI’s stated expected on-orbit performance (0.25m GSD data, or better, at nadir from 250km) Design the bus’s edge-compute architecture to remove the need for ground processing and thereby decrease the data latency to the warfighter Design and build the prototype Ka-band high bandwidth transmitter capable of data transmission rates in excess of 5 Gbps Demonstrate, to the extent possible, an integrated test to simulate the complete imagery chain from “photons in” to “RF data out” using deliverables from the previous tasks