The possibilities of polar meteorology, environmental remote sensing, communications and space weather applications from Artificial Lagrange Orbit

Abstract

The ability to observe meteorological events in the polar regions of the Earth from satellite celebrated an anniversary, with the launch of TIROS-I in a pseudo-polar orbit on 1 April 1960. Yet, after 50 years, polar orbiting satellites are still the best view of the polar regions of the Earth. The luxuries of geostationary satellite orbit including rapid scan operations, feature tracking, and atmospheric motion vectors (or cloud drift winds), are enjoyed only by the middle and tropical latitudes or perhaps only cover the deep polar regions in the case of satellite derived winds from polar orbit. The prospect of a solar sailing satellite system in an Artificial Lagrange Orbit (ALO, also known as “pole sitters”) offers the opportunity for polar environmental remote sensing, communications, forecasting and space weather monitoring. While there are other orbital possibilities to achieve this goal, an ALO satellite system offers one of the best analogs to the geostationary satellite system for routine polar latitude observations. A summary is given of the current on-going activities using composite satellite imagery over both Arctic and Antarctic regions. The use of both polar orbiting and geostationary satellite imagery together currently provide the best continental and hemispheric view of these regions, and provide an analog for what could be possible from an ALO satellite platform. How the composites are made as well as a brief description of applications is discussed. Potential user applications of environmental remote sensing from an ALO satellite platform are outlined along with critical space weather observations. In addition, the increasing need for communication and data relay in the remote polar-regions is reviewed along with an ALO satellite system potential capability to relay data from other satellite constellations. These current efforts foreshadow only a portion of the possibilities that are desired by the user community.