Design of a cubesat constellation for monitoring hot spots in Indonesian forest areas

This paper describes the design of a CubeSat constellation for hot spot monitoring mission in Indonesia’s forest, starting from a literature review, selecting the LWIR (Long Wavelength Infrared) sensor as the main payload that is well-suited for capturing thermal radiation emitted by hot spots, to the exploration of satellite orbits. There are two proposed orbit scenarios: The first scenario consists of one CubeSat at altitude of 560 km and 11 degrees inclination, while the other proposed a design of four satellite constellations with 560 km altitude, 97 degrees inclination and variations of 90 degrees mean anomaly for every CubeSat. The CubeSat mission is supported by two ground station systems, located in Biak and Bogor to ensure routine daily monitoring. From the simulation results, each target area can be covered at least once a day by at least one satellite. The research demonstrates that CubeSat technology, when strategically employed, can play a pivotal role in enhancing forest fire monitoring capabilities.