Giuseppe Francesco De Luca

Status, results, potentiality and evolution of COSMO-SkyMed, the Italian Earth Observation constellation for risk management and security

COSMO-SkyMed is a Dual-Use program, devoted to produce both civilian and military applications, and as such it is required to have a fast response time, to manage conflicts and to optimize resources.

The COSMO-SkyMed Dual Use Earth Observation Program: Development, Qualification, and Results of the Commissioning of the Overall Constellation

COSMO-SkyMed (CSK) is the largest Italian investment in Space Systems for Earth Observation, commissioned and funded by the Italian Space Agency (ASI) and the Italian Ministry of Defense (It-MoD). The CSK constellation has been completely qualified in orbit since 2010 and it is still operating at full performance with a constellation of four mid-sized satellites placed in Low Earth Orbit, each carrying a high-resolution X-band Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR), and a full-featured Ground Segment to exploit observation capabilities and providing SAR imaging servicing worldwide. The primary mission objective of CSK is the provision of services able to quickly answer to the user needs in the domains of Monitoring of land and environmental resources, Strategic Surveillance for Defense and Intelligence, Maritime Control, Topography, and Commercial applications as well. CSK fulfills civilian and defense needs, enhancing international partnerships through its interoperability, expandability, and multisensor (IEM) features and practices. Thanks to these features, CSK is an asset for international partnership such as the Italian-Argentinean Satellite System for Emergency Management (SIASGE). This paper intends to delineate how those fundamental characteristics of CSK have been qualified and commissioned from the launch of the first CSK satellite in 2007 through its progressive deployment until the system in-flight final acceptance (S-IFAR) event in 2010 that has completed the orbiting four-satellite qualified configuration. Nowadays, CSK is operating at full performance, constituting an asset for its firstclass radar observation capabilities, state-of-the-art technology aimed at improving security of countries, safety, and life quality of their citizens.

New concepts and innovative solutions of the COSMO-SkyMed “Seconda Generazione” system

COSMO Second Generation (CSG) system has been conceived, according to the requirements stated by ASI and I-MoD, at the twofold need of ensuring operational continuity to the currently operating “first generation” COSMO-SkyMed (CSK) spacecraft constellation, while achieving a generational step ahead in terms of functionality and performance. The improved quality of the imaging service is among the foremost characteristics of CSG (see [5]), providing the End Users with new/enhanced capabilities in terms of higher number of images and increased image quality (i.e. larger swath, and finer resolution) with respect to COSMO-SkyMed (first generation) spacecrafts currently in operation, along with additional capabilities (e.g. full polarimetric SAR acquisition mode). The greater operative versatility in system resources management is one of the key aspects of the design approach. Some examples are the satellite agility both at platform and antenna level, used to increase the density of acquisitions in a fixed region, the capability to adapt operative profiles to system environment (e.g. sun illumination, downlink scenarios), service request planning process not only function of the priority but also able to maximize the system resources exploitation.

INTEGRATED LOGISTICS SUPPORT and OPERATIONS: CONCEPTS AND METHODOLOGIES IN SPACE BASED PROGRAMS, THE COSMO-SKYMED EXPERIENCE

Primary mission objective of the COSMO-SkyMed system is the provision of an operational Earth Observation Endto-End Service able to fast answering to the user needs. End-To-End Service is based on a reliable, secure and flexible system capable of generating and distributing that service in terms of basic products and value added products. COSMO-SkyMed is a complex System, composed by a Space Segment, a distributed Ground Segment and an Integrated Logistic Support & Operations (ILSO presenting the topdown approach, the development process and the advantages in terms of cost optimization and end-to end performance achievement.

COSMO-SkyMed Second Generation Planner

COSMO-SkyMed Second Generation (CSG) system has been conceived, according to Italian Space Agency (ASI) and Italian Ministry of Defence (It-MoD) requirements, at the twofold objective of ensuring operational continuity to the current constellation (COSMO-SkyMed - CSK), while improving functionality and performances. It is an “end-to-end” Italian Earth Observation Dual-Use (Civilian and Defence) Space System with Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) operating in X-Band. CSG mission planning purpose is to fully employ the system resources, shared between partners with very different needs, producing a mission plan that satisfies the higher priority requests and optimizes the overall plan with the remaining requests according to the users programming rights consumption. CSG Mission Planning tool provides new performances in terms of adaptability and flexibility of the planning and scheduling algorithms conceived to select and synchronize data acquisition and downloading activities. CSG planning and scheduling problem is characterized by a large size of research space and a particular structure of technical and managerial constraints that has led to the implementation of innovative design of the planning algorithms based on both priority criteria and saturation of system resources. This approach envisages two scheduling strategies: the rank-based and the optimization-based. The former strategy is firstly applied to the most important request categories, with an associated rank value or priority level; the latter is subsequently applied to the unranked or lower priority requests. This is an iterative dynamic process of finding optimal solutions able to better answer the demanding requirements coming from the needs of heterogeneous users.

The Cooperation Between Military Users and Italian Space Agency in the COSMO-SkyMed Program

In the ECSS standards is clearly settled the project work flow. There is the initial phase in which it’s necessary to fix the user requirements, followed by the Phase A, named Feasibility, in which the industrial teams has to analyze the feasibility of the project. It is evident that this logical flow became very “fragile” for a dual use program cause its internal complexity. The cooperation between the civilian world and the military one it has been the bigger challenge for the COSMO’s Program Office.