The IRIDE constellation is an ambitious Italian space program that will support the national authorities in their analyses and monitoring activities, with a focus on Italian territory mapping. It will comprise a series of small satellite subconstellations exploiting a wide range of remote sensing technologies. This article analyses the NIMBUS X-Band synthetic aperture radar (SAR) IRIDE subconstellation, exploring potential orbital configurations beyond the more conventional and widespread dawn-dusk sun-synchronous orbit (SSO) one. In particular, starting from the mission target, we show that a 49° mid-inclination orbit (MIO) in a right-looking StripMap acquisition mode represents a highly effective choice for NIMBUS. We demonstrate that this configuration enhances the systematic coverage of the Italian territory with six nodal days of interferometric revisit time and high spatial resolution, thereby facilitating detailed observations of both natural phenomena and anthropic activities. In terms of differential SAR interferometry (DInSAR) performance, we prove that MIOs do not show significant limitations for what attains the critical baseline and geometric distortions. In addition, MIOs may lead to future advances in creating 3-D displacement maps because they allow for the recovery of the North-South deformation component that, conversely, cannot be precisely measured with DInSAR systems operating in SSO.

INTRODUCTIONThe IRIDE Project is a space-based observation program initiated under the framework of Italy’s National Recovery and Resilience Plan (PNRR) which aims to establish satellite constellations for Earth observation. It is poised to upgrade Italy's Earth observation capabilities, delivering a wealth of satellite products that will contribute to the nation's approach to environmental monitoring, disaster management, and resource utilization. The IRIDE Project will be completed by 2026 and is composed of the following main components:Upstream Segment: This segment consists of a bundle of six constellations of satellites that will make up the IRIDE space segment.The satellites will be equipped with a variety of imaging sensors, including multispectral, hyperspectral and SAR sensors. They will be placed in low Earth orbit (LEO), which will allow them to provide frequent and detailed images of the Earth.Downstream Segment: This segment encompasses the ground infrastructure that will be used to operate the satellites and to collect, process and distribute the data acquired by the satellites. This part includes the ground stations, the FOS, the PDGS and data access Marketplace including the Cyber Italy.Service Segment: This segment consists of the services that will be provided to the Italian public administration. These services will include EO based data products, analytics, and relevant applications.This paper will describe specifically the suite of EO products and related main characteristics offered by the IRIDE six constellations of satellites: HEO, EAGLET-2, NIMBUS-VHR, NIMBUS-SAR, NOX and PLATINO-HYP.

IRIDE is a new Italian space project, aimed at strengthening the country's Earth observation capabilities to support environmental monitoring, disaster management, security and resources management.IRIDE is funded by Italy's National Recovery and Resilience Plan (PNRR) and the Piano Nazionale Complementare (PNC). The total envelope of the programme is 1.070 Meur. The European Space Agency (ESA) manages the Project implementation with the support of the Agenzia Spaziale Italiana (ASI).The programme is executed in the timeframe from December 2021 until June 2026. This includes the fabrication, deployment, and operational validation of all systems components. As this is a very challenging schedule, IRIDE relies mostly on existing capabilities within the Italian Space Industry, fostering its competences in commercial production.IRIDE will rely on six satellites constellations equipped with various imaging sensors, spanning the electromagnetic spectrum from optical to hyperspectral and SAR domains, to provide comprehensive data coverage of the Earth's surface.The system is composed by the following main components: the Upstream Segment, the Downstream Segment and the Service Segment.

In this work, we investigate potential orbital configurations of NIMBUS, one of the Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) components of the Italian constellation IRIDE, which will be completed by 2026 under the management of the European Space Agency (ESA), with the support of the Italian Space Agency (ASI). IRIDE is conceptualized as a "constellation of constellations", comprising multiple sub-constellations of satellites positioned in Low Earth Orbit (LEO) and equipped with various sensing technologies, including SAR and optical sensors with medium- and high-resolution capability, operating at different frequency ranges. Given both institutional and commercial users the constellation is expected to fulfill, this work introduces a methodology to compare different orbital configurations and finally identify the optimal orbital arrangement that maximizes the Italian national coverage within the shortest revisit time possible, considering both the capabilities and imaging performance of a SAR system planned for deployment in orbit.

In order to help scientists in the above ground biomass community and to support the science behind the upcoming BIOMASS satellite missions, ESA is building a cloud-computing platform called Multi-Mission Algorithm and Analysis Platform (MAAP). The MAAP is jointly developed and implemented with NASA and will include not only data (satellite, airborne, in situ data and products), but also high performing computing capabilities and tools and algorithms developed to support this specific field of research. To best ensure that users are able to collaborate across the platform and to access needed resources, the MAAP requires all data, algorithms, and software to conform to open access and open-source policies. As one such example of best collaborative and open-source practices, the BIOMASS data processing algorithms are developed on MAAP under the umbrella of an open-source scientific software project called BioPAL. In addition to aiding researchers, the MAAP will focus on sharing data, science algorithms and compute resources in order to foster and accelerate scientific research.

The Biomass mission is the 7th Earth Explorer Mission within the frame of the ESA Earth Observation Programme. The primary objective of Biomass is to determine the worldwide distribution of forest above-ground biomass in order to reduce the major uncertainties in calculations of carbon stocks and fluxes associated with the terrestrial biosphere. To meet these objectives Biomass will carry, for the first time in space, a fully polarimetric P-band synthetic aperture radar (SAR) supporting also interferometric acquisitions. This paper provides an overview of the Biomass system design and development status.