TEST OPTICAL OBSERVATIONS OF THE COSMOS 1408 FRAGMENTS

Abstract

The non-functioning spacecraft COSMOS 1408 (NSSDCA/COSPAR ID: 1982-092A) was destroyed as a result of tests involving Russian anti-satellite weapons on 15 November 2021. This led to the creation of a significant debris cloud that poses a threat to other objects in low Earth orbit (LEO), particularly those in close orbits. More than 1500 of these fragments reached trackable sizes. Such events require rapid and immediate monitoring through all available ground tracking means, including radar and optical observation. The following study presents the results of optical observations of the selected fragments of COSMOS 1408 in Ukraine. These observations were carried out by the telescope OES30 from the National Space Facilities Control and Test Center of the State Space Agency of Ukraine and the Fast Robotic Telescope (FRT) of the Research Institute "Mykolaiv Astronomical Observatory" in February 2022. The observations demonstrated that Ukrainian optical sensors are capable of tracking LEO space debris objects with radar cross-sections (RCS) less than 0.1 square meters when relatively accurate ephemeris data is available. The astrometric reduction has been performed for the acquired frames with fragments of the satellite, which revealed that orbital parameters of a significant part of the targeting objects were close to the orbital parameters of the original satellite before the event. Furthermore, the results of processing the available observations indicated that the range of apogee heights significantly exceeds the range of perigee heights. These findings align with conclusions drawn by previous researchers. In the future, it will be essential to assess the capabilities of sensors for observing the aftermath of object destruction in LEO, especially during the initial hours and days following such events when precise debris orbit data may be lacking.