Space-based ISR constellation

Such new ISR capability should have a very high impact over the tactical means of the European stakeholders before and during a crisis, in terms of:

• Reactivity (rapid availability of information after request).
• Added value of the information collected (nature, resolution and complementarity with other ISR sources).
• Multi-users and federated access to the different components of the constellation.
• Continuity and sustainability of the information flow by providing affordable solutions to regularly gather information via the space domain.

The nature of the solution (constellation of small satellites allowing sharing of resources between Members States, and EDF Associated Countries and other users) and development plan should also allow for a timely shared or joint procurement (not excluding final stages of development) and in-service support while preserving a sufficient level of sovereignty.

Several EU Member States and EDF Associated Countries operate high-end Space-based ISR (SBISR) systems, either as national assets or under specific transnational cooperation agreements. These systems use a wide variety of traditional spaceborne sensors and have provided EU defence with an extensive experience on the use of SBSIR. Many EU Member States and EDF Associated Countries, which do not have direct access to a SBISR system, receive space imagery through commercial providers or transnational cooperation.

As the existing systems are operated independently and are made of a low number of high-end space assets, their revisit, persistency, reactivity, and data diversity are limited. Similarly, support at tactical level is only possible with nationally operated assets because current transnational data sharing time response is not meeting the requirements for tactical support.

This SBISR call topic aims at contributing to develop an affordable constellation of small satellites, including its ground segments able to handle various types of innovative sensor payloads (optical, night vision, low light infrared, hyperspectral, RADAR, passive RF detection, video) for ISR applications. Such a constellation would complement high-end existing military capabilities while allowing responsive and smart tasking and data collection for near real-time operational and tactical use.

The objective of the topic is therefore to develop European SBISR capabilities through three pillars:

1) An access system called the Federation Layer^[1].

2) The development of a low-latency constellation made of multi-sensor small-satellites.

3) The access to existing national capabilities and capabilities under development.

It aims to pave the way towards a future operational European Earth observation defence capability for ISR applications.

Specific objective

The specific objectives of this call topic are to:

• Define and develop the overall architecture of the constellation: types and number of satellites of each type, orbits, performance, among others revisit time; ground segment(s), i.e., control segment as well as user segment (Federation Layer), with particular attention to end-to-end responsiveness and affordability.
• Identify complementarity with on-going activities at EU (i.e., EU Space programme, EU agencies), national or multinational level (including those already supported via the EDF).
• Develop or integrate components (sensors, platforms, ground segments and other key sub-systems, including security), which meet the needs of EU Member States and EDF Associated Countries.
• Develop interfaces definition and demonstrate the Federation Layer in terms of functionality and security.
• Facilitate the use of existing national capabilities and those under development, in order to demonstrate and test a first ISR capability by the end of the action.

One of the challenges of this call topic is to achieve high performance payloads compatible with small satellites, in order to procure an affordable constellation that can federate EU Member States and EDF Associated Countries around a shared and sustainable capability. In this context, industry should propose a development that leads to an affordable solution in terms of non-recurring and recurring costs, by taking also into account the operational and maintenance costs.

Moreover, the architecture should remain modular and scalable, in order to cope with an increase in the number of satellites within the constellation or in the number of users.

The applicants should also address the challenge of ensuring that the proposed solution can be adapted to various forms of cooperation. They should develop a solution compatible with several governance models and data policy for end-users to be proposed to the current and future co-financers, including potential EU stakeholders. They should therefore define possible rules, related to the defined technical solutions, for the prioritisation of tasking or processing requests, for data management, data processing and data dissemination.

Proposals must address the development of European SBISR capabilities through the three pillars mentioned above. Proposals must cover the development of the overall system (i.e., space and ground segment), including in particular:

• At system level:
  • The deepening of the concept of operations (CONOPS) for such capability, including the functionality and security of the Federation Layer.
  • The advanced design of the overall system architecture (including selection of orbits, and sensors, possible inter-satellite links (ISL), possible data relay satellites, ground stations, raw data management and processing) and the definition of each component of the end-to-end system, composed of the satellite platform(s), the ISR payloads and the ground segment(s).
  • The detailed definition of minimum-security common requirements and associated impact on the design of technical solutions and on the costs.
  • The development plan(s) for the new constellation; de-risking activities and technological roadmaps must consider various options for each component of the system based on existing solutions, adapted solutions and/or new developments. Different development stages must be considered for the proposal, depending on the current maturity level for each component or ISR payload. Synergies with industrial technology roadmaps and with national, multinational and EU programmes, studies and projects (e.g., European Defence Industrial Development Programme, European Defence Agency, EU space programme/secure connectivity or earth observation governmental service) should also be analysed.
  • The development plan(s) for the use of existing and planned systems that can contribute to or complement the constellation, including to what extent they can contribute to an early start of the European capability compared to the plan for the launch of the small new satellites.
  • The cost and cost benefit analysis - including launch costs and estimate of the overall operation and maintenance costs. Where design options are being identified (e.g., number of satellites for each constellation component, number of ground stations, functions offered by the user ground segment) the cost benefit analysis must allow to compare the proposed options.
• At space segment level:
  • The development up to TRL^[1] 6 for selected payloads, with the identification of suitable existing or upcoming satellite platforms, available in the EU, to host them; the proposals must clearly identify for each type of payloads mentioned above, the starting point and expected ending point in terms of TRL, and the target satellite platforms for these payloads.
  • Only if duly justified in the proposal, the planning, implementation and in-orbit demonstration and validation of some payloads or technologies. The justification expected in the proposal should justify the risk of launching the production of a first batch of satellites without in-orbit demonstration (IOD) and given this risk the relevance of the proposed IOD from a cost and planning perspective. The requested EU contribution for the proposal must not cover the associated launch(s) and deployment costs (that should therefore be financed by the owners of the prototype(s)).
  • The planning of the implementation (i.e., prototyping) and launch of a first batch (typically covering a single orbital plane) of satellites able to demonstrate the validity of the architectural solutions defined, to test the constellation management and to deliver an initial federated ISR capability. The requested EU contribution for the proposal must not cover the associated launch(s) and deployment costs (that should therefore be financed by the owners of the prototype(s)).
• At ground segment level:
  • The consolidation of the performance of each control and mission ground segments to be used for each type of satellite of the system, and of the associated operational costs.
  • The detailed design and the development of interoperable ground segments’ prototypes (in terms of main control and planning functions) for multi-mission applications able to be federated through the Federation Layer.
  • The development of a Federation Layer prototype (minimum TRL 6) able to offer multi-mission tools and handle harmonised and anonymised requests for data acquisition, data processing and data dissemination, quota countering for each user, on each component of the ISR constellation or for the constellation as a whole).
  • The testing of the Federation Layer prototype using abovementioned satellite sensor prototypes and/or other available and relevant sources (e.g., commercial or national space components).

Types of activities

The following types of activities are eligible for this topic:

The technical maturity of the development at the beginning of the action is assumed to be:

• A PDR (Preliminary Design Review) level for the system of systems (with federation).
• A PDR level for each elementary system (each elementary system being dedicated to a type of sensor).
• A minimum of PDR level (i.e., possibly a higher level) for new sensor payloads.

Accordingly, the proposals must cover at least the following tasks as part of the mandatory activities:

• Studies:
  • Consolidation and optimisation of the CONOPS of the system of systems and of elementary systems taking into account the technical outputs of tests.
  • Consolidation and optimisation of the strategy of deployment of the system (in particular with respect to launches and operations).
  • Update of the technical and programmatic documentation from the PDR (in particular, performance budget, development plan, risk assessment, costs evaluation) taking into account technical outputs of tests.
  • Issue of a preliminary user manual of the Federation Layer.
  • Production of the technical documentation required for the security accreditation of the system by national security agencies.
• Design:
  • Completion of the detailed design definition of the system at all levels (system, space components, ground segments).
  • Production, development, testing and pre-qualification of selected critical elements and components (to be identified in the proposal).
  • Detailed definition of internal and external interfaces at system, satellite, and ground levels.
  • Demonstration (to reach at least TRL6) of new sensor payloads.
  • For sensors targeting the launch of a first batch of satellites during the action, achievement of the Critical Design Review of the payload, the satellite platform, and the system, and of the Qualification Review of the satellite.
• Prototyping:
  • Development of an operational demonstrator of the Federation Layer.
  • Development of prototypes of new sensor payloads as required for demonstration of at least TRL6 (to be identified in the proposal).
  • For sensors targeting the launch of a first batch of satellites during the action, production of a first batch of satellites ready for launch.
• Testing:
  • Test of the demonstrator of the federation layer, with at least two types of sensor systems (commercial services, or national contributing systems, or a first batch of satellites to be launched during the action) and at least three end-users.
  • Environment testing of new sensor payloads, as required for demonstration of at least TRL6 (to be identified in the proposal).
  • Test and validation of all satellite and ground critical interfaces (to be identified in the proposal).

At the end of the action, the suggested system should be mature enough to allow for decision-making regarding procurement and start of initial operational capability.

The proposals must substantiate synergies and complementarity with foreseen, ongoing or completed activities in the field of Earth observation for ISR applications, notably those described in the call topic EDF-2022-DA-SPACE-ISR related to Innovative multi-sensor space-based Earth observation capabilities towards persistent and reactive ISR, as well as those performed within the EU Space programme, notably the feasibility studies on potential EU Earth-observation services for governmental use and the EU Secure Satellite Constellation IRIS².

Functional requirements

The capability to be developed should meet the following functional requirements:

• High revisit: develop a scalable solution allowing to accommodate a growing number of satellites (same or different payloads) within the constellation, ultimately to reach, for some use cases, intra-hour revisit.
• Affordable very high spatial resolution: achieve resolution below 0.5 m with small satellites for optical visible video/still imagery and SAR (e.g., low altitude orbit, on-board processing).
• Operational timeliness improvement: develop the capability to dynamically (re)task a satellite (e.g., within a few minutes); ability to perform automatic tipping and cueing; reduce downlink latency and enhance data downlink throughput; for some use cases, reduce time between tasking of the constellation and delivery of the relevant information to the end-user (e.g., tactical use).
• Highly digital architecture allowing advanced and flexible on-board processing: enable autonomous extraction of actionable information from the captured imagery and data, and automatic preparation of complementary tasking of the constellation (e.g., autonomous decision to lock image over a defined object or area of interest pin-pointing), even with different acquisition modes (e.g., video) for target detection and analysis (classification, recognition, identification) depending on task/mission, including passive RF monitoring.
• Space-to-ground efficiency: allow both high data rate downlink and optimisation of downlink efficiency, where relevant making use of on-board processing capabilities.
• New space imagery and passive RF monitoring applications for Defence and Security: develop new sensors, processes and processing compatible with a small satellite and allowing to provide new type of products of interest for Defence and Security.
• Big data analysis: to develop a system that could support Big Data management to achieve high-speed analysis (including fusion) and streaming of multi-sensor data for ISR purposes.
• Interoperability: develop a system that is inter-operable with external systems (e.g., with interfaces allowing scalable and secure information exchanges across participating EU Member States and EDF Associated Countries, and with the EU).
• Security requirements: develop a system that takes into account the necessary needs for integrity, confidentiality and availability (this should include affordable crypto for up- and down-links) and the multi-user dimension of the constellation (while anticipating possible future access by other institutional users for civilian missions (e.g., security or emergency).
• Space debris: structural design of spacecrafts and the planned end-of-life activities should comply with applicable space law(s) and implement space-debris mitigation measures.

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