LAUSR

Abstract Space-based optical observation is now developing rapidly and many researches have been done to analyze the various requirements for targets to be visible. However, there were few studies providing intuitive methods to solve the boundary of the effective coverage and the effective coverage rate integral, which are desperately needed to evaluate the actual coverage performance for the optical sensor systems. In this study, different shapes of field of views (FOVs) of an optical sensor and space geometrical visibility constraints are mapped to an observation celestial sphere mapping surface (OCSMS), which makes it feasible and convenient to calculate the effective coverage. This method shall be of significance for calculating the spatial covering capacity of optical sensor systems and furtherly optimizing the selection, installation and configuration of sensors during the design of space-based observation spacecraft.