The 6th IAA Symposium on Small Satellites for Earth Observation, initiated by the International Academy of Astronautics (IAA), was again hosted by DLR, the German Aerospace Center. The participation of scientists, engineers, and managers from 24 countries reflected the high interest in the use of small satellites for dedicated missions applied to Earth observation.
As in the previous symposia, the contributions showed that dedicated Earth observation missions cover a wide range of very different tasks. These missions provide increased opportunities for access to space and can be conducted relatively quickly and inexpensively. The spacecraft bus, the instruments, and the ground systems can be based either on optimized off-the-shelf systems with little or no requirements for new technology, or on new high-technology designs. Thus a new class of advanced small satellite missions, including autonomously-operating "intelligent" satellites and satellite constellations can be created, opening new fields of application for science and the public.
The symposium provided 11 sessions for oral presentations and one poster session. Furthermore, in our 6th Symposium the Student Prize Paper Competition has been continued. The student papers have been evaluated by distinguished judges selected from academia, industry and government, coming from four continents. The finalists presented their papers in the Student Conference session.
Session 1 -- Programmatics NASA Earth Observation Programs and Small Satellites Neeck, S. P., Hammer, T. F. Incubating domestic space-qualified manufacturers through ROCSAT programs Chern, J.-S., Huang, A., Wu, L. Trends and Visions for Small Satellite Missions Sandau, R., Paxton, L., Esper, J. Development of the MicroSat programme at INTA Angulo, M., Mi, J. M., De Vicente, P., Prieto, M., Rodriguez, O., De la Fuente, E., Palau, J. Session 2 -- Missions (1) Moving towards commercial Earth observation services with small satellite constellations Baker, A. M., Davies, P., Boland, L. PROBA spacecraft family - small mission solutions for emerging applications Bermyn, J., Dorn, C. Small Satellites and Earth Observation Systems for Small Countries and Regions Schoenmaker, A. Session 3 -- Instruments Development of High-Performance Optical System for Small Satellites Choi, Y.-W., Yang, S.-U., Kang, M.-S., Kim, E.-E. Comparison of Atmospheric Ozone Measurements between NASA's Total Ozone Mapping Spectrometer (TOMS) and the FASAT BRAVO Ozone Mapping Detector (OMAD) Fernandez-Saldivar, J. A., Underwood, C. I., Mackin, S. Serious microsats need serious instruments, MIBS and the first results Leijtens, J., de Goeij, B., van der Meche, E., Eschen, M., Court, A. Session 4 -- Constellations Feasibility of a constellation of miniature satellites for performing measurements of the magnetic field of the Earth Thomsen, M., Merayo, J. M. G., Brauer, P., Vennerstrom, S., Olsen, N., Toffner-Clausen, L. Preliminary concepts and analysis of future Earth observation missions based on distributed radars D'Errico, M., Fasano, G. The Swarm Magnetometry Package Merayo, J. M. G., Jorgensen, J. L., Friis-Christensen, E., Brauer, P., Primdahl, F., Jorgensen, P. S., Allin, T. H., Denver, T. EO formation flying applications for small satellite missions Sephton, A. J., Wishart, A., Strauch, K., Teston, F. Session 5 -- Subsystems (1) GPS for Microsatellites - Status and Perspectives Montenbruck, O., Markgraf, M., Garcia-Fernandez, M., Helm, A. On-the-fly merging of attitude solutions Jorgensen, P. S., Jorgensen, J. L., Denver, T., Allin, T. H. Design and on-orbit evaluation of magnetic attitude control system for the "REIMEI" microsatellite Sakai, S., Fukushima, Y., Saito, H. GPS & low cost sensors in navigation Bourghani Farahani, N., Pouryaie, N. Session 6 -- Students Session GPS based attitude determination for the Flying Laptop satellite Hauschild, A., Grillmayer, G., Montenbruck, O., Markgraf, M., Vorsmann, P. Electromagnetic formation flight system design Kwon, D. W. Preliminary system simulation environment of the university micro-satellite Flying Laptop Brandt, A., Kossev, I., Falke, A., Eickhoff, J., Roser, H.-P. A miniaturised UV imaging spectrometer for remote sensing of atmosphere: volcanic sulphur dioxide, ozone, and aerosols Fernandez-Saldivar, J. A. Beesat attitude determination and control system Herfort, M., Berlin, M., Geile, H.-P., Yoon, Z. Session 7 -- Special aspects Initial SPHERES operations aboard the International Space Station Saenz-Otero, A., Miller, D. W. BIRD micro satellite thermal control system - 5 years of operation in space Lura, F., Biering, B., Lotzke, H.-G., Studemund, H., Baturkin, V. Integration and testing challenges of small, multiple satellite missions: Experiences from the Space Technology 5 project Sauerwein, T. A., Gostomski, T. The "Mailbox Ground Station" - A procedure to improve the operational key requirements of Earth observation systems Brand, B., Zehetbauer, T. A Software-Defined Radio Approach for the Implementation of Ground Station Receivers Juang, J.-C., Tsai, C.-T., Miau, J.-J. Session 8 -- Missions (2) Rubin - an evolutionary approach from testbed to MNT-enabled satellite Ziegler, B., Penne, B., Kalnins, I., Bruhn, F., Stenmark, L., Briess, K. Mission requirements and analysis of Indonesia's second generation satellite to support food security program Hardhienata, S., Prabowo, G., Fitrianingsih, F. A low-cost microsatellite platform for multispectral Earth observation Graziani, A., Melega, N., Tortora, P. Nano-satellites for micro-technology pre-qualification: the Delfi program of Delft University of Technology Hamann, R. J., Verhoeven, C. J. M., Vaartjes, A. A., Bonnema, A. R. Session 9 -- Spacecraft bus Development of the method of the creation of micro-satellite (# 50 kg) platforms for the fundamental and applied research of the Earth and near-earth outer space Klimov, S. I., Rodin, V. G., Zelenyi, L. M., Angarov, V. N. EnMAP satellite bus - a cost effective platform for advanced earth observation mission Penne, B., Kassebohm, M., Mahal, S., Froehner, P., Greinacher, R., Hofer, S., Forster, K. P., Stuffler, T. Indigenous Mission of Satellite System Development Program in Taiwan Weng, S.-L., Ling, J., Tsai, T.-H. Session 10 -- Lessons learned First year in orbit - Results from the Beijing-1 operational high resolution small satellite da Silva Curiel, R. A., Gomes, L., Purl, D., Hodgson, D., Sweeting, M. An Introduction to FORMOSAT-2's Global Effectiveness Chern, J.-S., Wu, A.-M., Liu, Y.-N., Wu, L. TopSat: Lessons learned from a small satellite mission Baxter, E. J., Levett, W. A. Session 11 -- Subsystems (2) High speed payload data handling with security for small Earth observation missions Penne, B., Tobehn, C., Rathje, R., Michalik, H. High data rate X-band transmitter for low Earth orbit satellites Sunay, H. K., Ismailoglu, N., Kirilmaz, T., Dudak, C., Sen, O. A. The ADPMS ready for Flight An Advanced Data & Power Management System for Small Satellites and Missions Puimege, K., Landstroem, S., Hardy, D. Flowing Taks: Scalable Software Dependability and Performance Montenegro-Retana, S., Vitulli, R.