Abstract
For safe operation of active space crafts, the space debris population needs to be continuously scanned, to avoid collisions of active satellites with space debris. Especially the low Earth orbit (LEO) shows higher risks of collisions due to the highest density of orbital debris. Laser ranging stations can deliver highly accurate distance measurements of debris objects allowing precise orbit determination and more effective collision avoidance. However, a laser ranging station needs accurate a priori orbit information to track an orbital object. To detect and track unknown orbital objects in LEO, here, a passive optical staring system is developed for autonomous 24/7 operation. The system is weather-sealed and does not require any service to perform observations. To detect objects, a wide-angle imaging system with 10° field of view equipped with an astronomical CCD camera was designed and set up to continuously observe the sky for LEO objects. The system can monitor and process several passing objects simultaneously without limitations. It automatically starts an observation, processes the images and saves the 2D angular measurements of each object as equatorial coordinates in the TDM standard. This allows subsequent initial orbit determination and handover to a laser tracking system. During campaigns at twilight the system detected up to 36 objects per hour, with high detection efficiencies of LEO objects larger than 1 m3. It is shown that objects as small as 0.1 m3 can be detected and that the estimated precision of the measurements is about 0.05° or 7 × the pixel scale.
Highlights
The number of space debris objects is increasing constantly, putting active satellites into a higher risk of collisions
Clausen we developed a passive optical staring system to detect and measure unknown orbital objects in low Earth orbit (LEO) for subsequent laser tracking
We demonstrated an instant handover to our tracking telescope (UFO) and redetected objects, like a rocket body, within the 0.27° large field-of-view (FOV) of the tracking camera, without any a priori information [5]
Summary
The number of space debris objects is increasing constantly, putting active satellites into a higher risk of collisions. Their downside is their high hardware and operating cost. While former activities required manual observation and processing, here we will present a fully operational passive optical surveillance system called APPARILLO (Autonomous Passive Optical Staring Of LEO Flying Objects), which is operational to contribute in a space surveillance network It is built for 24/7 autonomous operation to detect orbital objects in LEO and export their measured tracklets in the tracking data message (TDM) format [6]. The system is the foundation of future Stare and Chase handover, where an initial orbit determination (IOD) is calculated instantly from the measurements taken by the staring sensor This orbit prediction will be sent to a tracking telescope which can perform subsequent tracking and laser ranging. This gives the minimum detectable RSO diameter d RSO and is calculated as follows [9], dRSO
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