On Thursday, April 29, the engineer Alan Pitthan Couto, a member of the E2MoC research group, participated in the 13th IAA Symposium on Small Satellites for Earth Observation, with the work “Investigation of Flower Constellations of Small Satellites for the Brazilian Territory Coverage“, under the guidance of professors Dr. Liana Dias Gonçalves and Dr. Willer Gomes dos Santos.
Abstract:
The Flower Constellation (FC) is a recent methodology employed for the design of satellite constellations. The most notable characteristic of this constellation structure is the same closed path that all spacecraft follow as seen from a synced rotating frame. The achieved spacecraft repeating ground-track has great potential for applications of interest over large land areas, including Brazil, such as territory coverage, telecommunications, and remote sensing. In this regard, this work aims to study and design an efficient FC for region coverage applied over the Brazilian territory. The design of the Keplerian orbital elements and characteristic FC’s parameters as well as the modeling and simulation of the system is done with the aid of the FreeFlyer®️ software. A parametric study was done in order to evaluate the effects of some FC parameters in the region coverage analysis of the Brazilian Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ).