Scheduling imaging mission for area target based on satellite constellation

The scheduling of satellite's constellation mode-based imaging for area target is studied in the present paper. On the basis of the properties of area target imaging, a submission model dividing the mission into a five-element set with time window and observing angle as its identification is employed. By applying the methodology of dynamic partitioning, the area target is partitioned into candidate submissions which are for multi-satellites' cooperative imaging with different observing angles respectively. In the aim of attaining the most effective imaging for satellite during the limited time window, the coverage rate for target is selected as the optimization goal. Therefore the best observing angles that satellites take in the limited time window are acquired. Finally, combined with engineering application, an example of the area target scheduling mission based on a two-satellite constellation on ultra-low orbit is taken and the final result proves the efficiency of the approach put forward in this paper.