Integrated constellation analysis tools to support New Observing Strategy mission design

NASA’s New Observing Strategies (NOS) thrust provides a framework for identifying technology advances needed to exploit newly available observational capabilities, including high-quality instruments on constellations of SmallSats and CubeSats, that enable measurement of phenomena that could not be studied using previously available techniques. Satellite developers and operators require software tools to simulate new technologies and validate new mission concepts that can incorporate a dynamic set of observing assets with various instruments located at different vantage points. These new mission concepts include many more design variables than traditional missions, requiring tools to facilitate trade analysis and concept validation in an iterative fashion, similar to an Observing System Simulation Experiment (OSSE) framework. Several recent projects address design and operational trades by designing software packages such as the Trade-space Analysis Tools for Constellations (TAT-C) co-developed by Stevens Institute of Technology, the Simulation Toolset for Adaptive Remote Sensing (STARS) developed by The Ohio State University, and the Virtual Constellation Engine (VCE) developed by the University of Southern California. Each tool has different but complementary capabilities and can be run independently. However, linking capabilities using modern web-based service application programming interfaces (APIs) contributes to a powerful modeling ecosystem for the Earth Science community with well-defined interfaces that facilitate interoperability with existing mission planning tools. This presentation will describe the capabilities of each individual software tool as well as recent efforts to integrate their capabilities to evaluate and mature constellation mission concepts as part of the NOS thrust.