Innovation in EO Space for Defence

The challenges, however, with high-resolution optical EO are spread across CONOPS (Concept of Operations) and other challenges like in the figure below:

What does India need?

A large country like India will require innovation in the EO satellite hardware and how insights are generated from the satellites.

A unique combination of the following parameters is what will help India potentially solve the challenges for defence:

 50+ km swath: A small fleet of microsatellites with a larger km swath will be able to cover the whole country in a short turnaround time, hence providing near-real-time monitoring.

Today, a large fleet of satellites and systems are assisting the armed forces to plan, manage and execute their operations efficiently. Effective monitoring of long borders and extensive areas require capturing images at large swath and high-resolution image with image processing and analytics in orbit solutions, contributing to the armed forces' decision-making process and enhancing ground opera- tions. However, monitoring for a large country like India has a particular set of challenges.

Challenges in the EO industry

Enabling efficient monitoring for defence with high-resolution satellite imagery requires a unique combination of resolution, frequency and swath. The commercial high resolution (~1m GSD) imaging satellites operating commercially have a swath of less than 50 km and mostly around 20 km.

 Sub-meter resolution: The high-resolution capability will enable the armed forces to monitor changes and activities, enhancing the decision-making process.

 On-board data processing: Improves efficiency by processing nearly 40% of the data in orbit to make insights available.

 End-to-end data infrastructure: A state-of-the-art infrastructure to disseminate data starting from capturing from orbit to solution, solving problems for the end customer.

KaleidEO is planning an aerial test in July 2023 for a planned fleet of four high-resolution, optical, multispectral satellites by 2025. The key features of the satellite will be a sub-meter resolution, with a large swath and on-the-edge processing capability. To know more about KaleidEO, or drop an email at info@kaleideo.co.