The Performance Estimator is a CPCM (Mission Planning and Control Centre) module of the "Cosmo SkyMed" project.
The COSMO-SkyMed (Constellation of Small satellites for the Mediterranean basin Observation) constellation is a project of the Italian Space Agency (ASI) tailored for risk management, coastal zone monitoring and sea pollution in a dual use approach (military and civil applications).
The Cosmo-PE subsystem deals with the definition and implementation of the PE (Performance Estimator) component, for the settings of the satellite acquisitions inside the Cosmo SkyMed framework.
By this component all the satellite settings (PRF, Chirp duration, swath width, sample windows start time, ecc.) to be performed on the satellite, are evaluated according to the performance parameters (range resolution, sample window length, data rate, receiver duty cycle, ecc) needed for each single acquisition.
The Cosmo-PE parameters management is composed by an automatic setting tool and a manual setting tool. These tools allow the selection from the Planning Database, of the best SAR instrument setting for each data and the definition of the SAR instrument parameters of the associated data. The operator can confirm, discard and update the solutions automatically defined and proposed by the system.
The Cosmo-PE is a subsystem designed, tailored and realised for the Cosmo SkyMed mission instruments, but can be easily adapted to other radar satellite missions in order to improve the acquisition planning according to the operator requirements.