Mass Production of Flexible Small Co-Registered EO/IR Space-based Instruments: SwRI's Pleiades Multi-Mission EO/IR Concept

Previous space-based assets have combined visible, near-infrared, shortwave-infrared, midwave-infrared, and longwave-infrared imagers into one “exquisite” instrument. Despite the quality of the data coming from these exquisite instruments, they have severe limitations regarding mass production, cost, and calibration complexities. Mass-produced, flexible small co-registered electro-optical/infrared space-based telescopes eliminate many of these limitations inherent in exquisite assets. For instance, our small electro-optical/infrared telescopes are considerably lower in size, weight, power, and cost; have many of their critical components commercially available; utilize heritage space-flight detector electronics and software; can be rapidly mass produced; considers the need for minimizing assembly, integration, and test in order to expedite delivery times; inherently includes an accelerated responsiveness (e.g. detectors, filters, and/or even telescopes can be readily changed to accommodate changes in mission objectives or advances in technology) of about an update every two-years. This approach becomes a disruptive game changer, particularly when implemented across a large number of SmallSats and using cross communications that provide each SmallSat with distribute high performance computing. This paper presents the Pleiades concept, preliminary performance estimates, discusses co-registration and suggests a path towards industrialization of this novel concept for multi-spectral, space-based imagery.