Satellite scans Earth

A satellite scans Earth and sends data down to a ground station. One specific challenge in the era of Space 4.0 is the increase in data that satellite constellations will produce. This is as a result of both the increase in the number of satellites and improvements in technology, for example in sensor quality and quantity. And it means that satellites will at some point create more data than the limited number of ground stations are able to receive. To tackle this challenge, a variety of options can be considered, including carrying out onboard data processing, sharing ground station networks between constellations and inter-satellite communication.