Virtual stationary satellites over any area of the earth for a continuous or set amount of time

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-10178499-B2
Application number	US-201815958350-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Apr 20, 2018
Priority date	Apr 21, 2017
Publication date	Jan 8, 2019
Grant date	Jan 8, 2019

Abstract

Various embodiments may provide systems and methods for achieving continuous measurements (e.g., continuous video images) of the same spot on the Earth using Low Earth Orbit (LEO) satellite constellations and/or Middle Earth Orbit (MEO) satellite constellations. Various embodiments may provide a system of Virtual Low Earth Orbit (LEO) Stationary Satellites (VLSSs) over any area of the Earth for a continuous or a periodic amount of time.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. A satellite-based sensing system, operable by a user, comprising:
one or more sensors to generate real-time remote sensing data;
the one or more sensors mounted on a non-geostationary constellation of satellites having a sufficient number of orbital planes and satellites per orbital plane such that each location on the Earth has at least one satellite over said location's horizon at all times to maintain continuous observation of the Earth and production of the real-time remote sensing data, and to provide fields of view without the distortions produced by a geostationary satellite;
storage of the real-time and historical data, produced by the one or more sensors, in one or more storage devices located in at least one of: one or more satellites or one or more ground terminals located on Earth, the multiple storage devices forming a data cloud;
a communications infrastructure connecting the constellation of satellites, the one or more ground terminals, and the data cloud for data collection and control, and user access;
a user interface to control the data collection and control, and the user access to at least one of the real-time data or the historical data; and
a computing device to receive a user selection of a user area of interest and to generate and send commands to selected satellites via the communications infrastructure to cause the selected satellites to use their respective sensors to gather data at the user area of interest, and wherein the computing device is in communication with the data cloud to receive and process the data to form derivative data products from the data in the data collection to meet the user needs, further wherein the data appear to the user to be continuously collected from a fixed observation point above a user area of interest on Earth.

2. The system of claim 1 , wherein the one or more ground terminals communicate directly with one or more of the satellites of the constellation of satellites and the constellation of satellites are configured to communicate with one another.

3. The system of claim 1 , wherein the number of satellites is a number equal to all satellites of the constellation of satellites passing over the user area of interest.

4. The system of claim 1 , wherein the constellation of satellites is a constellation of medium earth orbit (MEO) satellites.

5. The system of claim 1 , wherein the constellation of satellites is a constellation of low earth orbit (LEO) satellites.

6. The system of claim 5 , wherein the computing device is further configured to:
display the data products on a virtual LEO stationary satellite (VLSS) interface element to a user.

7. The system of claim 6 , wherein the computing device is further configured to:
receive the user area of interest within the VLSS interface element; and
generate and send commands to selected LEO satellites of the constellation of LEO satellites via the communications infrastructure to cause the selected LEO satellites to use their respective sensors to gather data of the user area of interest, wherein the selected LEO satellites are one or more LEO satellites with orbital paths that pass over the user area of interest as the LEO satellites move; wherein the successive LEO satellites passing over the user area of interest provide a continuous data record for the user area of interest.

8. A method for generating a satellite-based sensing system, operable by a user, comprising:
mounting one or more sensors, generating real-time remote sensing data, on a non-geostationary constellation of satellites having a sufficient number of orbital planes and satellites per orbital plane such that each location on the Earth has at least one satellite over said location's horizon at all times to maintain continuous observation of the Earth and produce of the real-time remote sensing data, and to provide fields of view without the distortions produced by a geostationary satellite;
storing real-time and historical data, produced by the one or more sensors, in one or more storage devices located in at least one of: one or more satellites or one or more ground terminals located on Earth, the multiple storage devices forming a data cloud;
providing a communications infrastructure to connect the constellation of satellites, the one or more ground terminals, and the data cloud for data collection and control, and user access;
providing a user interface to control the data collection and control, and the user access to at least one of the real-time data or the historical data; and
providing a computing device to receive a user selection of a user area of interest and to generate and send commands to selected satellites via the communications infrastructure to cause the selected satellites to use their respective sensors to gather data at the user area of interest, and wherein the computing device is in communication with the data cloud to receive and process the data to form derivative data products from the data in the data collection to meet the user needs, wherein the data appear to the user to be continuously collected from a fixed observation point above a user area of interest on Earth.

9. The method of claim 8 , wherein the constellation of satellites is a constellation of medium earth orbit (MEO) satellites.

10. The method of claim 8 , wherein the constellation of satellites is a constellation of low earth orbit (LEO) satellites.

11. The method of claim 10 , further comprising:
displaying the data products on a virtual LEO stationary satellite (VLSS) interface element to a user.

12. The method of claim 11 , further comprising:
receiving a user selection of an object within the VLSS interface element; and
generating and sending commands to selected LEO satellites of the constellation of LEO satellites via the data cloud to cause the selected LEO satellites of the constellation of LEO satellites to use their respective sensors to gather data of an area the object is in, wherein the selected LEO satellites of the constellation of LEO satellites are one or more LEO satellites of the constellation of LEO satellites with orbital paths that pass over the object as the object moves.

13. The method of claim 12 , wherein the one or more ground terminals is configured to communicate directly with one or more of the LEO satellites of the constellation of LEO satellites and the constellation of LEO satellites are configured to communicate with one another.

14. The method of claim 13 , wherein the number of satellites is a number equal to all LEO satellites of the constellation of LEO satellites passing over the user area of interest.

15. The method of claim 14 , further comprising combining remote sensing visual scene data from two or more of the LEO satellites of the constellation of LEO satellites passing over the user area of interest to generate a LEO Staring three-dimensional video data record.

16. The method of claim 11 , further comprising:
receiving an indication of a user history request associated with the user area of interest;
generating and sending commands to the constellation of LEO satellites via the data cloud to cause the constellation of LEO satellites to send stored historical data for the user area of interest to the data cloud;
receiving the stored historical data from the selected LEO satellites via the data cloud; and
displaying the stored historical data on the VLSS interface element to the user.

17. A Virtual Low Earth Orbit (LEO) Stationary Satellite (VLSS) graphical user interface, comprising:
a data cloud map to receive a user selection

Assignees

• Nasa

Inventors

• Regan Curtis R
• Horan Stephen J

Classifications

• G06F16/29

  Geographical information databases · CPC title

• H04W4/021 Primary

  Services related to particular areas, e.g. point of interest [POI] services, venue services or geofences · CPC title

• B64G3/00

  Observing or tracking cosmonautic vehicles · CPC title

• B64G1/1085

  Swarms and constellations · CPC title

• H04B7/1853

  Satellite systems for providing telephony service to a mobile station, i.e. mobile satellite service (for selecting H04W) · CPC title