Affordable quality images from space.AQUALIS (AQUALIS)

Information has a high value in our economy and lives. Images from space provide a wealth of data for a wide variety of users in diverse applications: soil and weather data to improve crop yields, monitoring of environmental parameters to steer sustainable action, monitoring of traffic on land and at sea, rescue and support actions in case of disasters anywhere on the globe. As the value of earth observation data is being recognised and exploited the demand for high spatial resolution at frequent revisit is strongly increasing. While technological advances in affordable small spacecraft developments are opening the gate towards the use of large satellite constellations with the objective of high frequency observations, various challenges still need to be tackled before high quality data products can be provided from miniature platforms and instruments. Moreover, data consistency in terms of radiometric and spectral stability is a challenge when combining data of large scale constellations. The AQUALIS project will develop three key technology building blocks which in a synergetic operation will significantly improve the quality of 1m ground resolution image data acquired from small spacecraft. The imec TDI sensor has an intrinsic potential to acquire high quality pixel signals under perfect stability conditions. The high accuracy 3-axis platform stabilisation technology from KU Leuven will compensate for spacecraft dynamic disturbances in a feed-back loop with the TDI control using both star tracker and accelerometers combined with image registration. And the VITO advanced image processing algorithms will transform sensor signals into geometrically, radiometrically and spectrally consistent image data. The overall objective of the AQUALIS consortium is to enable the Flemish space sector to valorise those key technology building blocks both in upstream product development and in downstream services using high spatial resolution from small spacecraft constellations.