Orbital and Angular Dynamics Analysis of the Small Satellite SAR Mission INFANTE

INFANTE is an ambitious Portuguese project of a small satellite for Earth observation using synthetic aperture radar and multispectral camera. The mission is a precursor and a technology demonstrator for a constellation for home waters coverage. The satellite will be deployed on a relatively low Earth orbit due to the SAR and power budget requirements. The restrictions on the altitude and the stabilization accuracy are relatively tight. Orbital and angular motion simulation results are reported in the paper. The possibility of the mission implementation using available attitude control and determination low-cost hardware is confirmed. Despite the low orbit altitude, the necessity of the orbit maintenance is questioned due to the specific satellite shape.