Coverage

A coverage computes and visualizes the ground footprint swept by a single satellite sensor over an Area of Interest. Coverages are children of an AOI: each one pairs a satellite and one of its sensors with an activation schedule that determines when the sensor is imaging. To combine multiple individual coverages across different satellites or sensors into a single fleet-level analysis, see Compose Coverage.

Coverages are Earth-only — the satellite must orbit Earth and carry at least one visible sensor.

Creating a coverage

1. In the Scenario tab, open the AOI’s more options menu (...).
2. Select Add New Coverage.
3. In the Coverage settings modal, configure:

Field	Description
Coverage Name	Display name shown as a child row under the AOI
Activation	Access + Pointing, Access windows only, or Target pointing only — which intervals activate the sensor
Figure of Merit	Simple Coverage (solid swath) or a spatial heatmap metric (Revisit Count, Mean Revisit Gap, Max Revisit Gap, Response Time)
Color / Color Scheme	Solid swath color (for Simple Coverage) or heatmap color gradient and grid resolution (for Figure of Merit modes)
Satellite	A propagated Earth satellite with at least one visible sensor
Sensor	One of the satellite’s sensors (conical or rectangular FOV, body-fixed or LVLH-fixed)
Opacity	Swath or heatmap fill transparency (5–100%)
Show coverage on globe	Enable or disable the 3D globe overlay without deleting the entry

4. Click Add Coverage (or Save when editing). The coverage is computed on the backend and persisted for the scenario.

You can add multiple coverages to the same AOI (e.g. different satellites, sensors, or Figures of Merit) and bulk show/hide or delete them using the checkboxes in the AOI list.

Activation plan

The Activation plan section of the coverage modal shows and filters the exact time intervals that activate the sensor:

• Access table (shown when Activation is Access + Pointing or Access windows only) — lists every completed access on the selected satellite (AOI, ground station, or inter-satellite) with a checkbox, target type, window count, and total duration. Satellite↔AOI accesses targeting this coverage’s AOI are checked by default; other accesses (such as ground-station passes) are opt-in so you can drive imaging by any access geometry.
• Pointing target table (shown when Activation is Access + Pointing or Target pointing only) — lists each target pointing entry configured on the satellite with its mode (Spotlight, StripScan, or Nadir), window count, and total duration. All pointing targets are checked by default, and you can uncheck specific targets to exclude them from the coverage.
• Windows table — previews the resolved activation intervals (Source | Type | Start | Stop | Duration). Access rows are tagged Access; pointing rows are tagged Spotlight, StripScan, or Nadir. The footer reports the total window count and the merged window count after overlapping intervals are combined.

Figure of Merit (FoM) heatmaps

Beyond painting a uniform swath, both individual coverages and composed coverages can evaluate spatial Figure of Merit (FoM) metrics across a grid projected over the AOI:

Figure of Merit	What it measures
Simple Coverage	Cumulative ground swath painted in a single solid color as the sensor sweeps across the AOI over time
Revisit Count	Number of distinct activation windows that cover each grid cell over the scenario
Mean Revisit Gap	Average time gap between consecutive passes over each cell (cells with at least 2 passes)
Max Revisit Gap	Worst-case time gap without coverage for each covered cell across the scenario interval
Response Time	Elapsed time from the scenario start until the first pass covers each cell

When a heatmap FoM is selected (anything other than Simple Coverage), two additional controls appear:

• Color Scheme — choose from Turbo (Blue–Green–Red), Viridis, Plasma, Inferno, Cool–Warm, Red–Yellow–Green, or Custom Colors (with independent Low and High color pickers).
• Grid Resolution — sets the number of grid cells along the longest side of the AOI in its local Lambert Azimuthal Equal-Area (LAEA) projection: Coarse (120), Medium (220), Fine (400), Ultra (650), or Extreme (900). The modal displays the resulting grid dimensions and approximate cell size in km.

Because the FoM evaluator operates on the pre-computed projected window geometries, switching between Figure of Merit modes, colormaps, or grid resolutions updates on the globe immediately without re-running the backend computation.

How the swath and metrics are computed

For each activation interval, the backend propagates the satellite state and projects the sensor’s 3D field of view onto the WGS84 ellipsoid at an adaptive time step so consecutive footprints overlap continuously. Footprints are unioned into a pass corridor and intersected with the AOI polygon in a local Lambert Azimuthal Equal-Area (LAEA) projection centered on the AOI — ensuring accurate area measurements (km²) and seamless handling across the antimeridian and high latitudes.

In Simple Coverage mode, the swath is revealed slice-by-slice on the 3D globe as the simulation clock advances and persists afterward, so scrubbing the timeline always shows the cumulative area swept up to the current simulation time.

Coverage report

Open the Coverage Report from a coverage’s row menu (... → Coverage Report):

• Coverage Summary — total unioned sensor-covered area (km²), total AOI area (km²), and percentage of the AOI covered, with a visual progress bar.
• Activation — number of windows, total activation time, and first/last coverage UTC timestamps.
• Figure of Merit — grid dimensions and cell resolution, plus summary statistics across covered cells:
  • Revisit count (average and maximum passes)
  • Revisit gap (average of mean gaps and maximum revisit gap)
  • Response time (average and maximum time from scenario start to first coverage)
• Per-window table — lists every pass chronologically, showing Start (UTC), Stop (UTC), Duration, Covered (km²), incremental New (km²) contributed by that pass, and % AOI. Double-click any Start or Stop timestamp to jump the simulation clock directly to that instant.
• CSV export — click CSV in the report header to download the full summary, FoM statistics, and per-window table.

Time-series plots and subsystem integration

• Time-Series Plots — in the Scenario tab’s plot builder, select Coverage as the object type to plot time series for the coverage:
  • Cumulative New Area (km²) and Cumulative New Coverage (%) (unique area of the AOI covered at least once so far)
  • Cumulative Covered Area (km²) and Cumulative Coverage (%) (total area swept including revisits)
• Power & Data Budgets — coverage windows can be selected as rule activation conditions in both the Power and Data Budget tabs, so sensors and imagers draw power and collect data only during active AOI coverage passes.

Requirements and limitations

• Requires a propagated Earth satellite with at least one visible sensor defined.
• Activation requires completed accesses and/or resolved target pointing intervals.
• When upstream inputs change (scenario interval, AOI geometry, satellite orbit, sensor mounting/FOV, access windows, or target pointing), stored coverage results are automatically invalidated and recomputed when enabled.

Next steps

• Compose Coverage — combine multiple individual coverages on an AOI into a unified multi-satellite or multi-sensor fleet coverage
• Area of Interest — define the geographic regions coverages are measured against
• Access — compute the visibility windows that activate a coverage
• Target Pointing — schedule pointing intervals as coverage activation windows
• Sensor — configure the conical or rectangular field of view that sweeps the swath