This short theoretical proposal paper was authored by researchers from the Meisei University in Tokyo and the Tokyo University and presented at the International Conference on Space Optics in 2021.
The problem they were presented with was that Low Earth Orbit imaging satellites have very bad temporal resolution. This means they have to pass over the location they want to image multiple times, building up the image with every pass, thus leading to imaging times measured usually in days.
On the other side of the coin are geostationary orbit satellites that would theoretically be able to take great images with a fraction of the time, but due to their orbiting distance cannot. The mirrors required to capture enough light to compile a high enough quality image are impractical to produce and calibrate with currently available materials and technology.
Thus this paper proposes Golay-6 telescope inspired formation of satellites. This formation would consist of 6 mirror carrying satellites and a sensor carrying main satellite. Such a solution forms a synthetic aperture, which allows gathering light from the 6 independent mirrors as if they were parts of one large mirror, achieving some of the performance. A secondary deformable mirror on the main satellite is used to mitigate some of the synthetic aperture aberration complications.
The simulated performance of the proposed telescope provides results marginally better than conventional telescopes, but greatly bettering temporal resolution.
An application proposed by the authors is for forest fire detection, but the solution could hypothetically be extended to most tasks concerning LEO imaging.
Paper: https://doi.org/10.1117/12.2599818
Temporal resolution: https://link.springer.com/referenceworkentry/10.1007%2F978-0-387-35973-1_1376
Aperture synthesis: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aperture_synthesis
Slides: