For many applications a distributed cluster of cooperating satellites offers distinct advantages over satellites functioning alone. These include optimization of mission performance and increased fault tolerance. Although there are many benefits, commanding and controlling a large cluster of cooperating satellites poses several challenges. These include how satellites in the cluster maintain kn...

We present a study of satellites in orbit around a high-resolution, smoothed particle hydrodynamics (SPH) galaxy simulated in a cosmological context. The simulated galaxy is approximately of the same mass as the Milky Way. The cumulative number of luminous satellites at z= 0 is similar to the observed system of satellites orbiting the Milky Way although an analysis of the satellite mass functio...

The Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) is working on extending the traditional TCP/IP model for supporting multimedia and real-time applications on the Internet. Thus, new protocols have been developed such as the Resource Reservation Protocol (RSVP). At the same time, there has been a growing interest in using Low Earth Orbit (LEO) satellites. In the near future, when the Internet with mul...

We use the low-redshift Zurich Environmental Study (ZENS) catalog to study the dependence of the quenched satellite fraction at M M 10 10 10.0 11.5   , and of the morphological mix of these quenched satellites, on three different environmental parameters: group halo mass, halo-centric distance, and large-scale structure (LSS) overdensity. Within the two mass bins into which we divide our gal...

Avionics for satellites is a market which is continuously growing in these years, especially thanks to the availability of low cost launch vectors. This cost reduction enabled many institutions (industries but also universities) to develop their own satellites. A first result of this process was the CubeSat concept: a really small satellite, built using low cost Commercial Off The Shelf compone...

Spacecraft standardization has been a topic of great debate within the space community. This paper intends to be a provocative thought piece asking one fundamental question: “is there a ‘right size’ for small satellites?” In order to answer this question, we propose three top-down design factors for the space systems engineering process: spacecraft utility, mission utility, and optimum cost. Sp...

Inverse modeling of CO2 sources and sinks using satellite data: A synthetic inter-comparison of measurement techniques and their performance as a function of space and time S. Houweling, F.-M. Breon, I. Aben, C. Rödenbeck, M. Gloor, M. Heimann, and P. Ciais National Institute for Space Research (SRON), Utrecht, The Netherlands Laboratoire des Sciences du Climate et de l’Environnement, Gif sur Y...

This paper gives an overview of the recent progress made in the use and application of geographical information systems (GIS) and remotely sensed (RS) satellite sensor data for the epidemiology and control of schistosomiasis in sub-Saharan Africa. Details are given of the use of GIS to collate, map and analyse available parasitological data. The use of RS data to understand better the broad sca...