At the heart of Skeyeon’s solution is technology that enables us to fly at Near Earth Orbit. Orbiting at this low altitude has allowed us to design a high-resolution telescope that features incredibly low physical volume. The small-form factor supports a low-profile, cost-effective spacecraft that acts as the basis for the scalable constellation. Space Junk is a growing issue, and a significant benefit of flying at Near Earth Orbit is that it is also a self-cleaning orbit. At end of life, the Skeyeon space craft will deorbit and burn up within weeks, leaving no space debris and minimizing any potential collision risk.
Quantifying the Cost Reduction Potential for Earth Observation Satellites
Near Earth Orbit is achieved using four breakthrough technologies:
Skeyeon’s compact telescope enables the development of a low-cross sectional space craft, capable of delivering 1-meter resolution in a small form factor and reducing the volume of the telescope by 25x. Additionally, the telescope boasts a reduced cost of 10-50 times when compared to other space telescopes of similar performance.
In Near Earth Orbits, the spacecraft will be subject to considerable drag and significantly impacted by the highly corrosive effects of atomic oxygen. The compact nature of Skeyeon’s space telescope allows us to develop a low cross-sectional space craft that significantly reduces drag. In addition, Skeyeon has developed a patented low drag, self-healing material that is atomic oxygen resistant. Samples of this patented material have been tested in the laboratory of Skeyeon Advisor, Tim Minton, and the low-drag and atomic-oxygen resistant properties suitable for VLEO flight have been demonstrated.
Phased array-based communication links are becoming mainstream in both commercial satellites and 5G communications, enabling a high data-rate steerable radio-link. Skeyeon’s patented radio link system leverages existing cell phone tower infrastructure to facilitate real-time downloads, resulting in direct-to-consumer, low latency image delivery.
Skeyeon technology was built from the ground up to be low cost, which enables a constellation that can grow to meet the revisit and coverage requirements driven by the market. Using readily available commercial technology, Skeyeon’s design philosophy is to make the form factor and power consumption as low as possible in order to reduce the weight of the vehicle and dramatically minimize launch costs.