A low cost, global MTPE effort

There is an emerging commercial space industry consisting of constellations of low earth orbiting satellites to that will provide global telecommunications services. There is also an ongoing earth science program, Mission To Planet Earth (MTPE), which has a similar global scope, constellation of satellites, and the need for global telecommunications. In this paper the authors, both of which have experience in science and commercial space programs, examine the commonalities between the infrastructure needs of both global systems, and propose a combined program with a store and forward commercial space telecommunications system. The combined program has many cost and performance benefits, and supports the shift in the governments role from using industry as a supplier for research to using industry as a partner.