Power in Low Earth Orbit. Verified.

More than 17,000 satellites are announced for launch into Low Earth Orbit (LEO) before 2027, for the purpose of real-time Earth observation and worldwide connectivity. The multitude of mission initiatives is a sign of democratization of space and induces enormous business opportunities.

LEOpowver will harvest results of the ERC Advanced Grant POWVER for the LEO market to arrive at orbit-proof software for the continuous, fully automated, power-optimal and profit maximising dynamic operation of Low Earth Satellite Constellations.The software will solve the pivotal challenge in the software-driven orchestration of satellite constellations, namely the management of the severely limited in-orbit electric power budget.+ At any point in time a highly accurate power model approximates the actual distribution of the state-of-charge of the on-board batteries very tightly.

This enables tracking and extrapolation of the battery state with unprecedented accuracy.+ Data transfer needs within large satellite constellations induce critical interdependencies between the individual satellites' power budgets.

The LEOpowver software determines the optimal data transfer in the form of a contact plan, enabling the constellation-wide best utilisation of resources while provably minimizing battery depletion risks.+ In-orbit battery measurements are transmitted to ground at the earliest possible moments, where they are fed into a machine learning mechanism rectifying the on-ground models of the satellites, which in turn is the basis for perpetuating the computation of always safe and best-to-follow receding-horizon schedules in a self-adaptive manner.

In this way, the quality of the constellation management is continually improved.The central activities of LEOpowver are (i) in-orbit validation of this software on a LEO satellite constellation and (ii) in-depth exploration of commercialisation opportunities for the software product.