The COSMO-SkyMed Seconda Generazione key improvements to respond to the user community needs

COSMO-SkyMed di Seconda Generazione (COSMO-SkyMed Second Generation - CSG) is the follow-on of the dual-use COSMO-SkyMed (CSK) mission, aimed at providing operational continuity with increased performance, flexibility and ability to respond to updated civilian and defence user needs. The definition and design of the second generation mission has capitalized all the major operational lessons learnt from the exploitation of the first generation system. Users required an higher degree of flexibility in the use of satellite imaging resources. In response to these needs, the major enhancement at space segment level involves the imaging performances and the satellite agility while at ground level flexible, responsive and optimized planning strategies were identified, both for the management of priority request and of background periodic acquisitions. The aim of this paper is to provide, from a user perspective, the “overall picture” of the introduced innovations. A mapping of these enhanced functionalities with respect to the enabling technologies and area of improvement is provided.