Feasibility Assessment of an Uncontrolled Nanosatellite Constellation Mission for Radar Depth Sounding of Ice Sheets
To improve ice sheet models used to estimate future sea level rise, major contributions must be made to ice thickness datasets. To date, ice thickness measurements have primarily been made by using depth sounding radars on airborne platforms, such as those fielded by the Center for Remote Sensing of...
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| Other Authors: | , , , , , |
| Format: | Doctoral or Postdoctoral Thesis |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
University of Kansas
2022
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| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | https://hdl.handle.net/1808/34425 http://dissertations.umi.com/ku:18628 |
| Summary: | To improve ice sheet models used to estimate future sea level rise, major contributions must be made to ice thickness datasets. To date, ice thickness measurements have primarily been made by using depth sounding radars on airborne platforms, such as those fielded by the Center for Remote Sensing of Ice Sheets (CReSIS) group at the University of Kansas (KU). Measurements collected over the last three decades by CReSIS and other groups are used to produce bedrock elevation and ice thickness maps of the Antarctic and Greenland ice sheets. However, there are still large geographic areas that have never been sounded. In addition, the datasets used to generate the full bedrock Digital Elevation Model (DEM) are collected using disparate systems over large temporal baselines, which can result in interpolation errors. Proposed in this document is an uncontrolled orbital radar sounding constellation of nanosatellites designed to fill coverage gaps of the major ice sheets. Similar concepts have been proposed in the literature, but this work contributes a unique vehicle analysis for this uncontrolled orbital constellation mission. Nanosatellites are of interest due to the benefits of limited cost and development time. Given the small size of the vehicle, in order to achieve the necessary cross-track aperture size, a constellation is required. Using multiple antenna channels from individual satellites limits design complexity and implementation time for a single vehicle, while maintaining the benefits of multi-channel radar data collection. A primary design driver for this report is the use of current technologies to allow for rapid implementation after publication; thus only an uncontrolled constellation (the nanosatellites include no propulsion or station-keeping technology) is considered. The unique challenge of this design is determining the likelihood of success for an uncontrolled constellation, especially as it relates to the accuracy of launch vehicle jettison. Only the uncontrolled constellation is investigated but ... |
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