MISC™ – A Novel Approach to Low-Cost Imaging Satellites

By severely limiting satellite size and weight, the popular CubeSat nanosatellite standard realizes noticeable cost savings over traditional satellites in the areas of design, manufacture, launch and operations. To date, there has been limited commercial utilization of CubeSat systems due to the widespread perception in industry that a 10 cm x 10 cm x 30 cm form factor is too constrained for payloads in support of useful missions. In this paper, we argue against this perception by presenting MISC™, a 3U CubeSat capable of providing 7.5 m GSD multispectral imagery from a circular orbit of 540 km. Over an anticipated operational lifetime of 18 months, each MISC will be able to image over 75 million km2, equivalent to approximately half the Earth’s landmass. MISC’s novel design combines a robust miniature imager module payload with an existing CubeSat Kit-based bus and a distributed ground station architecture. With anticipated order-of-magnitude cost savings when compared to current commercial offerings, MISC's lifetime system cost should represent an extremely attractive proposition to consumers of satellite imagery that wish to own and operate their own assets. MISC satellites will be available for commercial purchase in mid-2009.