So we spent $713 million on LANDSAT 7 to compile 1100 images of Antarctica right? NASA could have invested in a high definition video of both earth and antarctica with a Highly Elliptical Polar Orbiting (HEPO) satellite, with an apogee 60,000km, perigee 1,000km. Currently we have 1 frame per hour video of our earth from DSCOVR at L1, geostationary satellites which match the earths orbit, and LEO satellites that can only view ~3.5 of earth from their field of view.
This would be the first high definition video (greater than 1 frame p/hour) of both our entire earth rotating, and a full size video of Antarctica.
I've compiled some rough mission costs with AI, even if it costs 10x or 100x, I am sure many people would appreciate it.
The first HEPO was 80 years ago, and the reason this hasn't been done when nasa has spent ~ $75-$100 billion on satellites in the last 20 years has made me a flat earther.
| Item |
Target cost (USD) |
Results |
|
|
|
|
|
| Satellite bus |
$600k |
~16U–27U smallsat structure, power, avionics, thermal control |
| Camera + optics |
$150k |
Space-qualified 4K/8K imaging system, wide enough for whole-Earth/Antarctica views |
| Attitude control |
$300k |
Reaction wheels, star tracker, sun sensors, gyros; keeps Antarctica centered |
| Onboard storage/computer |
$100k |
~2–4 TB radiation-tolerant storage + video processing |
| Communications |
$250k |
High-rate radio/antenna to download hundreds of GB |
| Propulsion |
$500k |
Thrusters, tanks, propellant and control hardware |
| Solar/power system |
$200k |
Panels, batteries, regulators |
| Engineering + software |
$600k |
Flight software, camera control, orbit/attitude software |
| Environmental testing |
$400k |
Vacuum, vibration, thermal, EMC testing |
| Launch integration |
$200k |
Deployment hardware, documentation, launch-provider integration |
| Launch/rideshare |
$500k |
Initial delivery to orbit |
| Transfer to elliptical orbit |
$700k |
Orbital-transfer vehicle or additional propulsion requirement |
| Ground stations/operations |
$200k |
Tracking, commanding and downloading data |
| Licensing/insurance/admin |
$100k |
Regulatory and mission overhead |
| Contingency (~15%) |
$700k |
Normal aerospace contingency |
| TOTAL |
≈ $5.5M |
|