Abstract
The United States Air Force maintains the Catalog of Earth orbiting satellites, or SATCAT. In February of 2009, a collision between Cosmos 2251 and Iridium 33 occurred. This event not only generated thousands of pieces of debris, but also heightened international interest in preventing future orbital collisions. Future potential collisions, or conjunctions, are predicted and warned of by the 18th Space Control Squadron (18 SPCS), across the space community, using Conjunction Data Messages (CDMs). The research team requested, processed, analyzed, and trended the historical catalog of 23 million CDMs across spatial and temporal domains for aggregate risk assessment in each of the major Earth orbit classes.This effort is in the spirit of the Air Force Safety Center's (AFSEC's) vision, which is to achieve a proactive safety culture of hazard identification and risk management across the Air Force, to prevent mishaps. The type and depth of analysis presented here will increase in the future to better inform the hazards of the orbital environment and cultivate space mishap prevention.
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