developed a twin micro-satellite: Hodoyoshi-3 and-4 to demonstrate and establish an innovative system design and a cost-effective development process for the mass production of micro-satellites in the future based on a new concept called "Hodoyoshi", which means "reasonably reliable". On June 19, 2014, the two satellites were successfully launched into Sun Synchronous Orbit, at an altitude of approximately 630 km. To date, we met several objectives with regard to system performance on-orbit, a considerable amount of mission data including Earth observation images. This project demonstrates system architecture design methods, integration and test processes, and on-orbit operation methods such as recovery functions from anomalies. The project is currently undergoing evaluation, under which the results of the operation are being reviewed with regard to the Hodoyoshi concept. This paper explains the Hodoyoshi concept, providing examples of hardware and software design, and arriving at a reasonable interface design and coordination. The paper also introduces the major characteristics of the satellites, and explains the key features and approaches of microsatellite development to realize cost-effectiveness.
This work describes in-orbit results of the Earth-observation missions of the microsatellites Hodoyoshi-3 and Hodoyoshi-4. These satellites were successfully launched from Russia by the Dnepr launch vehicle on June 19, 2014. Hodoyoshi-3 has observation devices that consist of a medium-resolution camera and a low-resolution one. Hodoyoshi-4 is equipped with a high-resolution multispectral camera that has a push-broom imaging sensor with a ground sampling distance of 6.3 m. The initial observations by Hodoyoshi-3 and-4 were successfully achieved. All cameras are regularly providing Earth-observation images. Due to limitations with the satellite attitude-determination system, geometric correction of the acquired images is carried out by registration to other satellite images. Hodoyoshi-3 and-4 can provide various Earth-observation results that consist of low-, medium-, and high-resolution images. These images are useful for disaster monitoring, vegetation monitoring, agriculture, and forest management.
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