Landsat Next Instrument Study Statement of Work.pdf

Landsat Next Instrument Study Statement of Work

1. Background

1.1. Landsat Program

For the past 48 years, Landsat satellites and associated U.S. Government ground processing, distribution, and archiving systems have acquired and made available global, moderate-resolution (15-120 meter) multispectral measurements of land and coastal regions, providing our longest record of Earth’s land areas from space. The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) of the Department of the Interior (DOI) fully recognize that this information is a national asset, providing an important and unique capability that benefits a broad community, including Federal, state, and local governments, global change science and academia, and international and private sectors.

Landsat data provide a consistent, well calibrated, and reliable foundation for research on land use change, forest health, and carbon inventories, and changes to our environment, climate, and natural resources. Additionally, the free and open availability of the Landsat data enables the measurements to be used routinely by decision makers both inside and outside the Government, for a wide range of natural resource issues, including water resource management, wildfires, agricultural productivity, rangeland management, and understanding impacts of climate variability on ecosystems. More information on Landsat can be found at http://landsat.gsfc.nasa.gov/ and http://landsat.usgs.gov/.

The USGS currently owns and operates two spacecraft, Landsat 7 and 8, both developed by NASA. Landsat 9, a near copy of Landsat 8, is under development by NASA and USGS and is expected to begin operations in 2021. Each spacecraft operates in a Sun synchronous, 705 km orbit, with an equatorial crossing time of 10:00 a.m. +/- 15 minutes, and (nadir) revisit of 16 days. Landsat 8 and 9 each host two instruments: the Operational Land Imager (OLI) providing multispectral imaging from the solar reflective spectrum visible through shortwave infrared (VSWIR) and the Thermal Infrared Sensor (TIRS) providing imagery in the emitted (thermal infrared) part of the spectrum. Beginning in 2021, USGS will operate both Landsat 8 and Landsat 9 from a Landsat Multi-Satellite Mission Operations Center (LMOC), scalable for additional fleet operations.

Under an inter-agency agreement between NASA and USGS, the U.S. intends to continue implementation of a robust spaceborne, land imaging system to ensure that necessary data are collected, processed into useful and efficient information products, and are archived and broadly distributed for use by the wide range of interested communities. The follow-on mission to Landsat 9 has been termed “Landsat Next”.

1.2. Landsat Next Mission Concept

NASA and USGS have recently advanced a Landsat Next mission concept centered around a collection of “superspectral” land observations, featuring both richer spectral information and http://landsat.gsfc.nasa.gov/ http://landsat.usgs.gov/ higher spatial resolution compared to Landsat 8 and 9. Landsat Next has been designated as a Category 1, Risk Class B development under the NASA mission risk classification system, with a minimal operational life of 5 years. For planning purposes, Landsat Next operations would be expected to begin in the late-2020s. Key aspects of the Landsat Next concept include:

• Collection of imagery with higher spatial resolution for improved agricultural monitoring, ecological monitoring, urban studies, water resources management and other applications. Increased spatial resolution was documented as a high priority by the USGS RCA-EO and represents an evolution of user needs given recent experience with European Union (EU) Copernicus Programme’s Sentinel-2 imagery (10/20-meter resolution) and commercial imagery.

• The Landsat Next bands also replicate the core set of bands from the Sentinel-2 constellation, allowing users to merge data from the two systems to achieve near-daily coverage for many applications.

• Acquisition of a limited number of additional, targeted spectral bands to significantly improve the suitability of U.S. land imaging data for new and evolving applications, including surface water quality, cryospheric science, geology, and agricultural applications including crop water consumption. Additional thermal infrared (TIR) bands would allow improved estimation of surface temperature by constraining emissivity.

• Preservation of spatial, geometric, and radiometric requirements reflecting Landsat 8/9 heritage, with required signal to noise ratio (SNR) comparable to Landsat 8 OLI performance once aggregated to 30m, and NEdT <0.2K for normal Earth temperatures.

NASA and USGS are as-yet undecided on whether an architecture comprising a single large satellite, or a small constellation of small to medium satellites would be most advantageous for Landsat Next. Whereas previous Landsat observatories were individual satellites that hosted instruments with a 15-degree field of view (FOV), the constellation architecture under consideration would fly multiple, smaller satellites with a narrower FOV to cover the full required swath. In this option, each small satellite would host identical payloads – either a single instrument covering the full spectrum (VSWIR and TIR), or two separate instruments that, when combined, covered the full required range of VSWIR and TIR wavelengths. In addition, regardless of single satellite or constellation approach, Landsat Next is considering alternatives to the heritage 705km WRS-2 orbit in order to improve temporal revisit.

As noted, no specific architecture has been decided upon by NASA and USGS, and this solicitation is open to both narrow-swath and full-swath instrument designs. For the purposes of this study, respondents should assume the satellites will fly in the operational orbit specified below in 2.1.

1.3. Instrument Study Objectives

The overall objective of this study is to develop and assess instrument concepts that could support Landsat Next. Specifically, this solicitation welcomes:

• Instrument concepts providing either complete coverage of required Landsat Next VSWIR+TIR spectral bands, or concepts providing coverage of only a subset of Landsat Next spectral bands.

• Instrument concepts providing either full-swath (applying to a large single satellite architecture), or narrow-swath (applying to a constellation architecture) coverage.

o Full-swath concepts should provide at least a 25.8 degree cross-track full field of view (FOV) in accordance with the orbit specified in 2.1. The total FOV may be accomplished with one or more instruments mounted on the same satellite.

o Narrow-swath concepts should provide a full field of view of at least 6 degrees (corresponding to at least a >60km ground swath) and be designed to operate in a multi-satellite constellation sufficient to provide global coverage every 8 days (see 2.1).

The intent of this study is to better inform the government as to the viability and risks associated with current instrument requirements and mission architecture options. Specific areas of interest include:

• Understanding driving requirements and how they impact or influence instrument design and performance

• Size, weight, power of instrument concepts

• Identify breakpoints in the trade space where instrument size, weight and power (SWaP) changes significantly (e.g.: Signal to Noise Ratio (SNR), Field of View (FOV), Modulation Transfer Function (MTF), Accuracy, etc.)

• Identifying long lead time development or procurement items needed for flight instruments

• Detailed analysis showing all requirements can be met

• Technical maturity, viability, scalability, and risk of instrument concepts

• Spacecraft assumptions, constraints or requirements

• Cost factors

NOTE: Selection for this instrument study is not a requirement for responding to any future Request for Proposal (RFP) or Announcement of Opportunity (AO) to implement instrumentation for Landsat Next. Selectees will not participate in writing or editing requirements for such a future RFP or AO.

1.4 Definitions for SOW Activities

The following definitions apply to the action verbs used in the contractual context of this study:

• Shall: Directive- required to be completed for this study

• May: Permissive - allows an option for completing the requirements of this study

• Will: Informative - states conditions or work that will be achieved outside of the context of this study, could be done by the Government or outside entities

• Should: Advisory – gives guidance to the Contractor for the performance of this study

• Must: Advisory – notifies the Contractor of relevant important conditions that may be outside the context of this study

2. Study Assumptions and Overview

2.1. Orbit

Landsat Next will fly in a frozen sun-synchronous orbit at 766km equatorial altitude, inclination of 98.44 with an 8-day repeating ground track. The equatorial crossing time will be 10:15am

+/- 5 (MLT-DN), with sunlit imaging on the descending node.

• This repeating ground track has a swath width of 349km. This implies that the required combined total FOV of the instruments on multiple satellites (see below) add up to at least 25.8 degrees, plus any overlap. There should be sufficient overlap relative to the FOV between orbits and/or multiple spacecraft to account for orbital drift, co-registration, and serve as a source of radiometric balancing. This combined FOV can be achieved by subdividing down to smaller FOV of the individual instruments according to the Contractor’s proposed design.

• The Landsat Next satellite(s) will be maintained in an operational “box” within 2-3 km of the nominal track and altitude during operations.

2.2. Constellation Architecture Option

A potential Landsat Next constellation would be comprised of multiple small, Class C satellites hosting identical payload(s). Each payload could be comprised of either:

a) A single instrument acquiring all VSWIR+TIR spectral bands

b) Separate instruments acquiring subsets of the spectrum while meeting the instrument-to-instrument requirements such that the band-to-band registration and simultaneity requirements are satisfied. The combination of all the instruments/satellites would cover the full spectrum.

In addition to the minimum number of satellites required to obtain full Earth coverage within 8 days, there would likely be 1-2 spare satellites, depending on the individual satellite reliability, with identical payload(s) to provide constellation-level redundancy and meet overall mission

Class B reliability. All satellites would launch at once, and the spare satellites(s) would be operational (imaging) throughout the mission to provide additional science acquisitions. The instrument(s) will be nadir-looking when in Earth Observation mode, with a combined field of view (FOV) of at least 25.8 degrees.

2.3. Single Satellite Architecture Option

A single satellite architecture would be comprised of a single, larger Class B observatory hosting one or more payloads, either:

a) A single instrument acquiring all VSWIR+TIR spectral bands (could be multiple instruments/telescopes to cover the full FOV)

b) Separate instruments that combine to cover the full FOV and full VSWIR+TIR spectrum, while meeting the instrument-to-instrument requirements such that the band-to-band registration requirements are satisfied.

The instrument(s) will be nadir-looking when in Earth Observation mode, with a full field of view (FOV) of at least 25.8 degrees.

2.4. Risk Class and Reliability

Landsat Next has been designated as a Category 1, Risk Class B mission according to the guidance provided in NPR 7120.5E and NPR 8705.4 respectively. For the single satellite version of the proposed mission architecture, the satellite would be expected to embody a conventional high-reliability and fully redundant approach. In the case of the constellation approach, each individual satellite can be implemented as Class C with appropriate use of quality Electrical, Electronic and Electromechanical (EEE) parts and selective redundancy.

Observatory consumables will be provisioned such that several additional years of extended operations will be possible.

2.5. Mission Requirements

The Landsat Next mission as a whole must meet the draft Landsat Next Mission Requirements which are summarized below in sections 2.6-2.12.

2.6. Instrument Power

Power for instruments will be supplied by the spacecraft bus, and instrument study contractors should assume a conventional unregulated 28V power bus.

2.7. Attitude Control

Contractors should assume nominal spacecraft bus ACS performance as follows:

• Orbit Determination knowledge: 10m

• Timing Knowledge: 25us

• Velocity Knowledge: 0.2 m/s

• Attitude Knowledge: 20 urad

• Attitude (Absolute Pointing) Control: 200 urad (while imaging)

• Jitter Control: ~2 urad @>10Hz (assume 0.25% damping) (see section 3.4)

• LOS Stability 5 urad

• Inter-instrument Alignment Knowledge: 10 urad

2.8. Communication

The spacecraft will include an onboard recorder, and a high-speed downlink capability. For the purposes of the study, the Contractor should assume that data volume and downlink capability are unconstrained.

2.9. Environments

The launch and space environments should be assumed to be consistent with current Launch

Services Provider (LSP) catalog launch vehicles and the specified orbital altitude. The instrument environmental qualification program should be consistent with GSFC-STD-7000A for protoflight implementation.

2.10. EEE Parts and Mechanisms

EEE Parts usage and instrument mechanisms should be assumed to be consistent with a high reliability spaceflight project, with desired mission life greater than 5 years.

2.11. Technology Readiness Level

Technologies planned for instrument designs must be able to demonstrate a Technology

Readiness Level (TRL) of 6 by the time of instrument Preliminary Design Review (I-PDR).

2.12. Attitude Maneuvers

The Landsat Next satellite(s) will be agile and capable of attitude adjustment in three axes, and carry sufficient propellant for routine inclination, drag makeup, and collision-avoidance maneuvers.

3. Work to Be Performed

The Contractor shall perform one or more conceptual designs of imager instruments capable of meeting the draft Landsat Next Imaging Requirements Document provided with this solicitation, subject to the assumptions listed above.

Contractor shall reference instrument designs to the following nominal satellite imaging coordinate system:

+X = Ram direction (velocity vector)

+Y = Cold Side (-Y is solar array)

+Z = Earth facing/nadir

As part of this design, the Contractor shall perform analysis and provide, as a minimum, the study products listed below.

3.1. Requirements Analysis

Contractor shall assess the Landsat Next performance requirements to identify the drivers for mass, volume, and power. Contractor shall identify opportunities for targeted relaxations in requirements that could lead to substantial savings in size, complexity, and/or cost.

3.2. Instrument Concept - General

Contractor shall develop an overall instrument concept that emphasizes high performance in a compact form factor, including optical design, any required scanning methodology, focal plane and associated electronics, instrument electronics and data handling, calibration hardware, and overall structure.

Contractor shall describe instrument compliance to the design guidelines listed in section 2.4 and requirements provided in the Imaging Requirements Document attachment. Contractor shall discuss any likely degradation of instrument performance over the mission lifetime and address the capability of their instrument concept to provide data beyond the design life, including wear-out mechanisms or potentially life-limiting mechanisms or aspects of the design.

Mission lifetime is defined in Section 1.2.

Contractor shall describe any safing mechanisms or operations needed to ensure instrument safety during maneuvers or non-nominal conditions. The contractor shall identify top level fault detection and correction aspects that can be included in the design.

3.3. Detailed Optical Design

Contractor shall develop and provide the detailed optical design for the instrument, including telescope design, and identifying optical materials and their relevant properties. Contractor shall assess optical throughput, geometric distortion, wavefront error, and stray light susceptibility.

3.4. Instrument performance

Contractor shall assess the performance of the instrument design relative to the draft Imaging

Requirements Document. Contractor shall develop radiometric and geometric error budgets showing allocation to Level-3 requirements. Image spatial requirements that apply to the data product may be met in part by oversampling and/or MTF compensation. Contractor shall identify instrument-specific jitter sensitivity and include provisions for dealing with the spacecraft jitter. Instrument study contractors should assume that spacecraft jitter sources such as reaction wheels and solar array drive assembly (SADA) will be specified to minimize disturbances.

Contractor shall describe instrument capability to image all global land, coastal regions, islands, reefs, and shallow water environments viewable in the instrument FOV during each daylight overpass, without limitations due to instrument availability, maximum duty cycle, or required calibration strategy. The instrument contractor shall address the capability and utility of nighttime imaging with the concept instrument as part of the study.

Contractor shall identify if a relaxation of the LOS stability requirement, such as allowing a larger seasonal variation, may have a significant impact on the instrument SWaP. Contractor shall note methodologies that would allow for and compensate for these slow instabilities.

3.5. Technical Maturity

Contractor shall identify technical maturity level (TRL) of instrument components, identify any technical risks associated with the design, and any maturation activities for low TRL components. Contractor shall identify any Commercial of the Shelf (COTS) sources for key components. Contractor shall identify any mechanisms inherent to the instrument design and their heritage.

3.6. Thermal control

Contractor shall analyze thermal control, including techniques and technologies for detector cooling and stabilization, accommodation of potentially large radiator areas on a small platform, and assessment of passive vs. active cooling on the platform.

3.7. Calibration

Contractor shall provide an instrument calibration plan to meet required performance, both pre-launch and over the mission lifetime, including identifying required onboard calibration hardware and external dependencies. This may entail a mixture of instrument stability, pre/post launch calibrations against traceable sources, vicarious calibrations, cross-calibrations using Top of Atmosphere observations, and/or statistical analysis. Contractor shall provide a radiometric error budget. Contractor shall identify instrument contributions to the geometric error budget such as instrument-generated jitter and the relevant timescales/frequencies to which the instrument design would be sensitive. Contractor shall identify design approaches to ensure that calibration stability is maintained during any off-nadir calibration activities such as lunar or solar calibrations.

3.8. Instrument Data Handling

Contractor shall describe how the raw data as read from the detectors is to be reformatted for required pre-processing within the instrument electronics, and in preparation for data compression. Contractor shall provide an overview of algorithms required to process

Instrument data, including their maturity. Contractor shall document any required ancillary data from the spacecraft or to the spacecraft.

3.9. Spacecraft Interface Requirements

Contractor shall identify interface requirements with the spacecraft bus. Contractor shall document any spacecraft interface requirements and assumptions as listed below for the interface items listed below.

• FOV

• Glint Keep Out

• Volume

• Mounting interface

• Center of mass/moments of inertia

• Alignment

• Thermal

• Power

• Command and Data interfaces including nominal and peak data rates

• Timing interfaces

• Fault detection/notification/safing interface requirements

• Spacecraft mounting for instrument electronics components (if any)

• Pointing

3.10. Operations Concept

Contractor shall provide an operations concept for the instrument, subject to the mission assumptions provided above, including the on-orbit calibration scheme. Contractor shall document the instrument configuration associated with operating modes (normal Earth imaging, calibration, safe hold, etc.). Contractor shall note any limitations to instrument duty cycle, or any other operational limitations.

3.11. SWaP (Size, Weight, and Power)

For instruments intended for the constellation approach, Contractor shall describe how the instrument fits within a reasonable envelope for maximum size, weight, and power allocations to be accommodated as a primary payload on a spacecraft bus that can be deployed from an

ESPA Grande adapter (or similar), or Contractor may describe an alternate approach as part of the study. For instruments intended for the single satellite architecture, Contractor shall describe how the instrument fits in an envelope that can be accommodated on a spacecraft intended to fly as a primary payload on a Falcon 9 or Vulcan LV, or similar. Contractor shall provide estimates of instrument power dissipation by operational mode.

3.12. Integration and Test Planning

Contractor shall develop a basic I&T flow for the instrument and shall assess any risks associated with meeting the assumptions for environmental testing requirements as described in section 2.9.

3.13. Deorbit Analysis

Contractor shall identify the estimated mass and volume of components that would survive re-entry, and identify instrument design approaches that minimize instrument debris casualty area

(design for demise) if a mission-level decision to employ uncontrolled re-entry is taken.

3.14. Cost, Schedule, and Risk Assessment

Contractor shall provide a nominal development schedule for the instrument, including time to reach PDR, CDR, and final delivery to the spacecraft integrator. Contractor shall provide overall cost estimate for the instrument, assuming development of engineering models and spares consistent with a Class B or Class C payload, and full capability interface simulators. For narrow swath (constellation) instruments, Contractor shall discuss the cost to develop the first instrument, as well as the cost associated with a block buy for the full constellation. Contractor shall perform a risk analysis and identify risks to the instrument design and development and provide potential mitigations. Contractor shall identify critical path thru instrument delivery, and long lead development/procurement items that could impact delivery.

3.15. Requirements Changes

Contractor shall assess the impact of a limited number of requirements changes, including new/alternate spectral bands. The contractor shall assess the feasibility to incorporate the following bands:

1. Add a yellow band in the range of 585-625nm

2. Add a green band center at 531nm (10-15nm width)

3. Improve red edge bands resolution to 10m

4. Narrow 2100nm bandwidth to 20nm

5. Add a visible 60m off-nadir camera (separate from main instrument) for atmospheric correction

6. Add a 60m MWIR 3.9-micron band

3.16. Study Options

Contractor shall include three options to address three additional study items within the 6-month study duration for potential exercise by the Government. These options should be priced at $10K per option.

The option(s) will be exercised by the Government with sufficient time remaining in the study duration for the Contractor to complete the activity.

4. Performance Period, Deliverables, and Reporting Schedule

The overall study period will last six calendar months from contract award.

The Contractor shall present study status at three Checkpoint discussions to be held at two-month intervals. These meetings will be held virtually via Microsoft Teams or a Contractor-hosted system.

1. Kickoff Meeting (award + 1 week) with all study contractors, scheduled and conducted virtually by the Government, 1-hour duration

2. Biweekly informal status and exchanges, individual contractors, 30 minute duration each

3. Checkpoint 1 (award + 2 months), individual contractors, 2-hour duration each

- Requirements analysis (task 3.1)

- Initial instrument concept (task 3.2)

- Initial calibration concept (task 3.7)

4. Checkpoint 2 (award + 4 months), individual contractors, 3-hour duration each

- Preliminary instrument concept (task 3.2)

- Preliminary optical design (task 3.3)

- Preliminary Instrument Performance assessment (3.4)

- Preliminary TRL Assessment (3.5)

- Preliminary cost, schedule, and risk assessment (3.14)

- Preliminary results on 3.6 through 3.13, including ROM SWaP

5. Checkpoint 3 (award + 6 months), individual contractors, 4-hour duration each

- Final study presentation and report, including:

o Final study report, including:

▪ Requirements Analysis (3.1)

▪ Final instrument concept (3.2) including Master Equipment List (MEL) and Reliability analysis

▪ Detailed optical design (3.3)

▪ Final instrument performance and requirements compliance matrix

(3.4)

▪ Final Radiometric and Geometric error budgets (3.4)

▪ Final TRL assessment (3.5)

▪ Final thermal control design and analysis (3.6)

▪ Operations Concept, including calibration approach and data handling

(3.7, 3.8 and 3.10)

▪ Spacecraft Interface requirements (3.9)

▪ SWaP (Size, Weight, and Power) (3.11)

▪ Integration and Test Flow (3.12)

▪ Final Deorbit Analysis (3.13)

▪ Cost, schedule and risk assessments (3.14)

▪ CAD files for instrument concept

6. Final Presentation Package and Report due 5 business days after Checkpoint 3 meeting, electronically.

ACRONYM LIST

Abbreviations/Acronyms Definition

AO Announcement of Opportunity CDR Critical Design Review COTS Commercial off the Shelf DN Descending Node DOI Department of Interior

EEE Electrical, Electronic and Electromechanical EELV Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicle EO Earth Observations

ESPA EELV Secondary Payload Adapter EU European Union

FOV Field of View

LMOC Landsat Multi-Mission Mission Operations Center

LOS Line of Sight LSP Launch Services Provider LV Launch Vehicle MLT Mean Local Time MTF Modulation Transfer Function

MWIR Middle Wavelength Infrared NASA National Aeronautics and Space Administration

NEdT Noise Equivalent Differential temperature

NPR NASA Procedural Requirement OLI Operational Land Imager

PDR Preliminary Design Review RCA Requirements Capabilities and Analysis

RFP Request for Proposal SADA Solar Array Drive Assembly SNR Signal to Noise

SOW Statement of Work

Swap Size, Weight, and Power

TIR Thermal Infrared

TIRS Thermal Infrared Sensor

TRL Technical Readiness Level USGS United States Geological Survey

VSWIR Visible through Shortwave Infrared

WRS Worldwide Reference System