Space Based Optical Images within a Space Surveillance System

Paper number

IAC-08.A6.5.6

Author

Mrs. Noelia Sanchez Ortiz, DEIMOS Space, Spain

Coauthor

Ms. Estrella Olmedo, Spain

Coauthor

Ms. Mercedes Lerate, DEIMOS Space S.L., Spain

Coauthor

Mr. Miguel Bello Mora, DEIMOS Space S.L., Spain

Year

2008

Abstract

An increasing interest exists in a future, autonomous European Space Surveillance System (ESSS). Currently, most of the knowledge on Earth-orbiting space objects is based on information provided by the USSPACECOM. This paper presents the main aspects to include optical images acquired from orbiting telescopes into the space surveillance system. Former studies were focused on the handling of ground-based radar and optical measurements, which will also be summarised with the aim of describing a global procedure for processing hybrid measurement types (combination of ground-based and space-based data for catalogue maintenance). 

In order to accomplish the task of analysing the impact of space-based telescopes images into a Surveillance system, several aspects have to be studied. The first consideration is the selection of the appropriate orbits to locate the telescopes, and the pointing strategies of the device. A description of the most suitable orbits and strategies, depending on the most interesting orbits to be observed, will be provided. Special interest on space-based observation of objects in the GEO ring exists since it avoids the weather dependence of ground-based observations of those objects. For this orbit regime, the time for observation of the complete GEO ring and the limiting size of observable objects will be provided.

Once the observation strategy is defined, the processing algorithm of the optical images to obtain information on the observed objects state vectors will be described. This process includes two different tasks: correlation with appropriate object in the catalogue and associated update of the data; and initial orbit determination for those observations that are not correlated with any of the objects in the catalogue. The initial orbit determination algorithms suitable for this type of measurements will be described and results on the achievable accuracy will be shown. Initial orbit determination activity presents similar difficulties to the case of optical images taken from ground-based telescopes; the two cases are compared. Accuracy of the routine orbital determination will also be shown as obtained from the implementation of Square Root Information Filter. 

For the correlation activity, it will be shown how the measurements obtained from the space-based telescopes are correlated with the already existing objects in the catalogue and how the catalogue is improved with this information when compared with one obtained from an only ground-based system.

Abstract document

IAC-08.A6.5.6.pdf

Manuscript document

IAC-08.A6.5.6.pdf (🔒 authorized access only).

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