Micro satellite system
South Korea plans to put military surveillance satellites and unmanned reconnaissance planes into operation by 2025. It will also begin developing ultra-small satellites during the period to realize near real-time monitoring of the Korean Peninsula.
The micro-satellite with a mass of 100kg are lightweight satellites with dozens of planes launched into low orbit sky to shorten the time to shoot imagery visiting the Korean Peninsula. The Government planned to start development during the mid-term target period, and scheduled to be electrified from the late 2020s.
The plan involves launching an ultra-small reconnaissance satellite capable of detecting terrestrial objects at sizes as small as 1m high by the mid-2020s through the use of solid fuel launch vehicles, which recently became possible through an amendment of South Korea-US missile guidelines. This new project was illustrated by an image of a Dove, part of a satellite constellation that provides a complete image of Earth at 3-5 meter optical resolution and open data access. Planet Labs is a commercial satellite company now headquartered in San Francisco, California, that takes a fundamentally different approach to aerospace and remote sensing. We build large quantities of small satellites, each weighing approximately 5 kg and based on the 3U Cubesat form factor. Plant launches and operates a flock of these satellites to capture images of the entire Earth on a daily basis.
The satellite design is iterated every few months, ensuring the latest technologies are constantly being incorporated in the hardware and software, and the satellite parts are primarily sourced from Commercial-off-the-Shelf (COTS) components from the commercial electronics industry and integrated using modern manufacturing techniques; a process of ‘agile aerospace’. To achieve whole-Earth coverage on a daily basis, Planet needs a Flock of approximately 120 Dove satellites simultaneously operating at 500 km altitude in a sun-synchronous orbit (SSO).
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