Speaker
Ms
Cristina Santana
(GMV)
Description
Since the first orbital launch back in 1957, the population of space debris in orbit around the Earth has steadily risen.
As the orbital debris population grows, the likelihood of catastrophic phenomena like the collision between two orbiting objects increases. In order to limit the proliferation of space debris in orbit, a great number of standards, guidelines and even laws have been put in place since the end of the 90’s.
In this scenario, a thorough and accurate bookkeeping of space objects is paramount. Space surveillance has thus become our most reliable ally to safeguard space missions from the threat of collisions.
The BAS3E simulator (Banc d´Analyse et de Simulation d’un Système de Surveillance de l’Espace) is a CNES software tool, developed in collaboration with GMV, with the following capabilities: orbit determination of space objects, generation of optimum observation plans, collision forecast, anticipation of dangerous reentries, and detection of debris fragmentation. Furthermore, BAS3E has the capability to simulate observations of space objects obtained by a given sensor network taking into account sensor visibility constraints. Orbit and attitude ephemerides, quality, precision, and usage cost; are some of the parameters that shall be defined for each sensor.
Originally conceived for ground-based observations (telescope and radar), BAS3E has been recently enhanced to enable the definition of “orbiting” sensor sites, which allow for the simulation of space-based space surveillance sensors.
Using such space surveillance system simulator, this paper evaluates the feasibility to use on-board sensors for both Low Earth Orbit (LEO) and Geostationary Orbit (GEO) object surveillance. The main goal is to assess the ability of a space-based space surveillance constellation, to detect and catalogue the space debris population on these both orbital regimes. The orbit determination accuracies that can be attained when space objects are tracked by different space-based sensor configurations have also been studied and will be presented in this paper.
Different constellations of equispaced spacecraft following quasi-circular, Sun-synchronous dawn-dusk orbits have been analysed, for which the constellation altitudes and the number of satellites were varied. For simplicity reasons, we assumed that spacecraft followed an attitude profile which ensured the pointing of the on-board sensor towards the object. This assumption permits the study of the attitude constraints required by each sensor in order to detect, track and catalogue a given space object.
| Applicant type | First author |
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Primary author
Ms
Cristina Santana
(GMV)
Co-authors
Alfredo ANTON
(GMV)
Juan Carlos Dolado
(CNES)
