# Real-Time Contrail Monitoring and Mitigation Using CubeSat Constellations
## 4 Distributed Systems with CubeSats
### Preliminary Constellation Simulations
Figure 5 presents the blackout duration, or periods without satellite coverage, revealing that configurations with a higher number of planes and satellites per plane effectively reduce these blackout times. Darker shades correspond to longer blackout periods, highlighting that sparse constellations are more prone to interruptions in coverage. Overall, these figures collectively demonstrate that increasing constellation density through more planes and satellites is crucial for minimizing blackout durations, maximizing visibility, and extending contact periods, thereby optimizing the network's performance for contrail monitoring in the North Atlantic Corridor. In particular, it can be seen that a single satellite configuration would result in blackout periods between 73 and 353 min, which reduces to less than 23 min for a 2 \(\times\) 2 constellation. These initial simulations suggest that a constella \begin{table}
\begin{tabular}{c c c c c c c c} \hline \hline
**Plane** & **Satellite IDs** & **Semi-Major Axis [km]** & **Eccentricity** & **Inclination [deg]** & \(\Omega\) [deg]** & \(\omega\) [deg]** & \(\
u\) [deg] \\ \hline P1 & CS-1, CS-2, CS-3 & 11628 & 0.40850 & 60.0 & 0 & 270.0 & 0.87, 150.99, 209.37 \\ P2 & CS-4, CS-5, CS-6 & 11628 & 0.40850 & 60.0 & 120 & 270.0 & 0.87, 150.99, 209.37 \\ P3 & CS-7, CS-8, CS-9 & 11628 & 0.40850 & 60.0 & 240 & 270.0 & 0.87, 150.99, 209.37 \\ \hline \hline \end{tabular} \(\Omega\) is the right ascension of the ascending node; \(\omega\) is the argument of perigee; and \(\
u\) is the true anomaly.  
\end{table} 
Table 1: Orbital parameters of the CubeSat constellation for contrail monitoring in the North Atlantic Corridor. tion composed of three planes with three satellites, each in highly eccentric orbits, presents a robust and practical solution for continuous contrail monitoring over the North Atlantic Corridor by ensuring continued, fully redundant satellite availability while minimizing constellation complexity. Figure 4: Minimum **(a)**, average **(b)**, and maximum **(c)** number of visible satellites over the North Atlantic Corridor region for various highly elliptic orbit configurations. Subfigure **(a)** shows the lowest number of visible satellites, **(b)** depicts the typical number of visible satellites, and **(c)** highlights the highest number of visible satellites. The color bar represents the number of visible satellites. Figure 3: Minimum **(a)**, average **(b)**, and maximum **(c)** contact duration over the North Atlantic Corridor region for various highly elliptic orbit configurations. Subfigure **(a)** highlights the lowest contact durations, **(b)** shows typical contact durations, and **(c)** demonstrates the highest contact durations. The color bar represents the contact duration in minutes. Figure 2: Percentage availability of satellites in the North Atlantic Corridor. Figures 6-8 illustrate the global coverage performance of the proposed 3 \(\times\) 3 satellite constellation system, specifically designed for operations in the northern hemisphere. Figure 6 shows the availability of at least one satellite across the hemisphere, where the darker green regions signify near-100% coverage. Notably, the coverage is most consistent at higher latitudes, including the North Atlantic Corridor, emphasizing the constellation's capability to ensure continuous access to satellite data in these critical regions. Figure 7 highlights regions where at least three satellites are simultaneously visible, with brighter areas indicating the strongest overlapping coverage. This redundancy is crucial for operational reliability, as it reduces the risk of data gaps during satellite handovers. The results in Figure 7 confirm that the constellation provides robust multi-satellite visibility in the northern hemisphere, which is essential for applications requiring high-frequency data collection. Figure 8 further illustrates the average contact duration between the satellites and the targeted regions of observation.