20 Apr Aresys will be subcontractor for SATURN mission

OHB Italia signed with ASI-Agenzia Spaziale Italiana, a “Phase A” contract for a technology demonstration mission called SATURN (Synthetic AperTure radar cUbesat foRmation flyiNg). It consists of a preliminary system study with definition of technical requirements and assessment of critical technologies for a train of 3, 16U-MicroSats equipped with miniaturized SAR instruments.

The subcontractors are:
ARESYS, responsible for the SAR payload, MIMO SAR data processing and the payload Ground Segment.
POLITECNICO DI MILANO, responsible for the mission requirements and data scientific exploitation.
AIRBUS ITALIA, responsible for the payload antenna design and manufacturing.

The main target of the SATURN mission is to demonstrate the key technology “Cooperative Multiple-Input-Multiple-Output (MIMO) Swarms of SAR MicroSats” for innovative, low cost and versatile Earth Observation applications.

SATURN will become the first ever Space SAR MIMO mission, introducing a new paradigm in SAR Earth Observation. SATURN will allow low-cost, scalable SAR missions for a quick approach to Space for private and public entities. The distribution of the key resources, normally concentrated in a single, large and complex satellite, can be distributed among small-sized and simpler systems, thanks to the proper combination of the signals from each single node of the swarm. Such constellation of swarms deployed on different orbital planes allows high revisit time and high performance independently from the available daylight and cloud cover.