Electronics Weekly
It includes a common payload interface – designed to host multiple payloads – on a single flexible electrical and mechanical interface. The idea, says Aitech, is to allow for quick and standardised designs to reduce cost and time to launch.
Anticipated applications for IQSat range from agriculture and military and defense to climate studies and public safety.
Actionable
“Space-based infrastructure solves big problems and fuels big advancements on Earth,” said Pratish Shah, U.S. general manager of Aitech. “The new IQSat platform is integral to space accessibility by delivering low cost, rapid deployment constellations that provide access to actionable information quickly and frequently for infinite applications.”
“Whether used for military and defense, environmental or agricultural applications, communications or scientific research, the flexibility, cost and availability of a solution like IQSat has not existed before – providing more accessibility to the power of space.”
As mentioned, the palm-sized design uses Leveraging Intuidex’s Watchman for Space product. This includes the capability to dynamically update the incident, event, object or threat detection priorities. This could be through uplinked software or configuration changes driven by users.
Tracking
It is designed, says Aitech, to support “rapid do-it-yourself user-based modeling, detection and tracking, pattern of life and anomaly detection, and constellation operations capabilities that enable new uses across a range of markets.”
For example, in the case of public safety, it references wildfires:
“A low-cost LEO constellation of IQSats can provide rapid detection of remote areas to identify natural disasters such as floods and fires; assist in remote search and rescue operations through detection of objects, locations and movement directly to the rescuer; or monitor infrastructure surveillance of dams, bridges and other structures.”
The IQSat provides mission flexibility for quick and cost-effective constellation design, reducing delivery time and cost of custom sensing satellites and constellation configurations. Leveraging Watchman for Space, the IQSat platform Additionally, IQSat offers the industry’s first.
Aitech
Aitech is showcasing the PicoSat platform this week at the Space Symposium in Colorado Springs.
Image: Aitech
See also: MoD awards £127m contract to build SAR-surveillance satellites in UK
