COSMO-SkyMed (Constellation of Small Satellites
for Mediterranean basin observation) is an Earth observation program of the
Italian Space Agency (ASI) developed by Alenia Spazio, a Finmeccanica company, as prime
contractor. The system will monitor the entire globe and the Mediterranean area in
particular, providing information for a number of applications thanks to the high
resolution of the images acquired, the reduced revisit times over the observed sites and
the speed with which the data will be made available to the users.
In constructing the COSMO-SkyMed system, Alenia Spazio will coordinate an
industrial team made up of several companies including some from the Finmeccanica group,
such as Telespazio, responsible for the development of the ground segment and management
in orbit, and Galileo Avionica and Laben for the technologically advanced parts of the
platform and radar.
The main objectives of the system are controlling national territory and
monitoring environmental disasters such as floods and landslides; monitoring coastlines,
seas and internal waters; agricultural monitoring to check on harvests and manage
treatment cycles; cartography using images with a resolution in the order of one meter.
The dual-use (civilian and military) of the system will also allow other
more official applications for territorial protection and strategic defense.
COSMO-SkyMed will therefore provide Italy with one of the world's
most technologically advanced observation systems to guarantee greater security and an
improved standard of living.
COSMO-SkyMed is made up of four satellites called COSMO 1 - 4 and related
ground infrastructures. Alenia Spazio will build the four satellites equipped with
high-resolution, X-band (9.6 GHz) synthetic aperture radar (SAR) and it will be possible
to integrate the system with the optical satellites of the French Pléiades-HR optical constellation. The COSMO satellites are
based on Alenias Prima Bus.
All the satellites will be fitted with particularly flexible and
innovative data transmission equipment operating in the X-band with a fixed antenna to
allow the high-speed (300 Mbps) transmission of the data to the ground. Furthermore, an
on-board recording system will acquire images of areas the satellites pass over even when
there is no link to the ground stations.
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