SPOOK: A tool for space objects catalogue creation and maintenance supporting space safety and sustainability

Abstract

Space Situational Awareness (SSA) is key to ensure Space Safety and Sustainability. In order to better understand the challenges of an increasingly congested space environment and to cope with those challenges, Airbus Defence and Space acknowledges the need to develop new sensors and enhanced data processing capabilities. This paper presents how the Special Perturbations Orbit determination and Orbit analysis toolkit (SPOOK), a group of software tools developed at Airbus Defence and Space, serves as a research platform and can be used to cover a range of SSA tasks.