Polar constellations design for discontinuous coverage

A novel constellation design method is developed for discontinuous coverage of the globe and polar caps. It integrates and extends the applicability of the coverage regions and mitigates the limitations of the existing techniques based on streets-of-coverage (SOC) theory. In particular, the visibility conditions of the targets are mapped in the (Ω, u)-domain to identify the number of satellites per plane and the distance between successive orbits, whereas the planes are arranged around the equator exploiting satellites both in ascending and descending phase. The proposed approach is applied to design potential space segments in polar LEO supporting the existing maritime surveillance services over the globe and on the future polar routes. Results show they require a smaller total number of satellites with respect to the SOC-based configurations for revisit times less than one hour and wide range of swaths. In details, it is observed a reduction between 6% and 22% for global coverage and between 24% and 33% for the coverage of polar caps.