The Development of an Onboard Processing Environment within the Flexible and Intelligent Payload Chain Sub-system for Small EO Satellites

Advancements in onboard data processing capabilities of small EO satellites represent an avenue for mission integrators, satellite customers and end-users alike to maximise the return on investment of space-borne remote sensing platforms. Surrey Satellite Technology Limited’s (SSTL’s) Flexible and Intelligent Payload Chain (FIPC) subsystem is an integrated solution which aims to address the data bottleneck challenges of small EO satellites, leveraging capabilities which include onboard data processing. This publication describes SSTL’s recent coupled developments in the FIPC space segment, towards a tightly integrated hardware architecture; a new Linux-based custom onboard processing environment; and an end-user segment with a tailored Application Development Framework. Together these facilitate the deployment of in-house and third-party developed software onboard processing Applications and pipelines, including those which exploit machine learning (ML) libraries and frameworks.