Enhancing Earth Observation with Creotech's HyperSat Platform

At Creotech, we are excited to collaborate on the MESEO (Multi-mission-Efficient and Secure-high-capacity End-to-end Earth Observation) project, an initiative backed by Horizon Europe. Our modular satellite platform plays a vital role in advancing MESEO’s Earth Observation (EO) technologies, supporting integration of the key technologies for the MESEO project.

HyperSat is a proprietary micro-class (20-200 kg) satellite platform developed since 2017 by Creotech. Its key features are modularity of subsystems and size scalability. New subsystems can be easily added thanks to the SpaceVPX standard and a hybrid backplane supporting 3U and 6U formats. The base variants of HyperSat are based on COTS and are ITAR-free parts. Since the beginning of our platform development, our goal was to develop a solution that can carry out a plethora of missions for various payload providers.

Satellite
Figure 1: Example of Eagle in HyperSat 60PR configuration.

Ensuring efficient intercommunication channels between MESEO project components is crucial to the system’s overall effectiveness. The flexibility of our on-demand, modular, and reconfigurable approach will enhance our MESEO partners’ ability to perform their tasks with optimal processing speeds. Our Payload Interface Controller (PIC) is a high-speed SOC-based processing board. It manages the payload instruments (and other MESEO components) while offering various data interfaces to provide scalability and while minimizing bottlenecks in the EO data pipeline. Additionally, the extra high-speed data storage space for downstream EO buffers, combined with the triaging and cataloguing of data, will ensure that the most comprehensive insights are available before the requests for data downloads are made. The platform follows CCSDS communication standards and utilizes PUS-C for both S/C and payload TMTC (Telemetry & Telecommands) downlink, ensuring compatibility with existing ground systems and simplifying data handling protocols. 

Advanced power monitoring and platform-level management of power consumption and availability enable our PIC to intelligently schedule and execute EO tasks. By continuously assessing power levels, the PIC ensures that all tasks can be completed without the risk of power outages, even under harsh environmental conditions. This proactive approach guarantees the availability of sufficient power resources for the most efficient and high-speed downlink communication, optimizing system performance while maintaining operational reliability in challenging situations.

In summary, the Horizon Europe-backed MESEO project is an opportunity for Creotech to advance EO technologies through a data bandwidth-driven approach. The project emphasizes efficient intercommunication, maximization of data transmission with power management of the MESEO EO payloads, which Creotech can optimize with its scalable and modular HyperSat platform.