A mission planning method for multi-satellite wide area observation

Space-based Earth observation is now developing rapidly because of the advantages in coverage, convenience, and flexibility. However, it is difficult for one single satellite to realize the quick observation of wide areas. In order to catch all the significant information of a wide area in a short time, multi-satellite observation mission would be proposed. In this article, a mission planning method for online multi-satellite wide area observation is established to serve future multi-satellite observation missions. Firstly, a method for area division is proposed, and the whole area is divided into subareas. Then the multi-satellite observation path planning is realized by a strategy of path deduction. After that, a remaining time allocation method to maximize the observation gazing time of each subarea is proposed. Finally, the algorithms for the whole mission planning process are provided. Numerical simulations show that the mission planning method is able to ensure the complete coverage of different wide target areas, with high reliability and low computational complexity.