Grant Privett, Defence Science Technology Laboratory (Dstl); Calum Meredith, Defence Science Technology Laboratory (Dstl); Andy Winterbotham, Defence Science Technology Laboratory (Dstl); Jamie Symons, Defence Science Technology Laboratory (Dstl); Lauchie Scott, Defense R&D Canada; Allie Fawcett, Bornea Dynamics; Simon Lyddiatt, Bornea Dynamics; Ricky Gill, University of Manitoba; Brendan Doherty, University of Manitoba; Riley Sweeney, University of Manitoba; Philip Ferguson, University of Manitoba; Paul Harrison, Magellan Aerospace; Matthew Driedger, Magellan Aerospace; Vojtech Balaban, Magellan Aerospace
Keywords: Space to space, SDA, SWIR
Abstract:
The Redwing space domain awareness (SDA) mission is currently under development by Defence Research and Development Canada (DRDC) in partnership with Magellan Aerospace. Redwing includes a number of technology demonstration activities, including the 6U CubeSat Little Innovator in Space Situational Awareness (LISSA) and its primary payload, a short wave infrared (SWIR) camera known as CompactSWIR. The CompactSWIR payload is being developed by the UK’s Defence Science and Technology Laboratory (Dstl) in partnership with Bornea Dynamics. Redwing is expected to be launched in late 2026 / early 2027 and will occupy a sun synchronous low Earth orbit (SSO, LEO) with LISSA. LISSA will have a nominal mission duration of 1 year and will detect LEO space objects in the southern hemisphere. A key limiting factor for most CubeSat missions is the need for small-size and low-mass components that can be operated within a modest power budget. This includes a limited data rate for communication links with the ground. The intention throughout has therefore been to create a demonstrator system using affordable COTS components that will generate good quality metric observation data, which can then be correlated with a satellite catalogue and ultimately used to improve orbit knowledge of a detected satellite or highlight recent changes to its orbit. This requires data reduction on orbit to reduce the larger-sized imagery data to metric observations in order to meet data link limitations. Software has previously been developed by Dstl that is capable of providing preprocessing of data from astronomical sensor observations, interfacing with freely available plate-solving software and detecting satellites. In preparation for use of this software pipeline with the CompactSWIR sensor, further development has taken place to take account of J-band and hardware requirements. This newly developed software data reduction pipeline has been called Syrinx. Test activities were undertaken using the CompactSWIR engineering model on a driven mount from under a 20 magnitudes/arcsecond2 sky in the UK to test the payload’s performance but also the software pipeline against real imagery. The test showed the software employing comparison stars down to J-Band magnitude 8 and demonstrated the software successfully extracting trails for both the targets and other satellites in the scene. It is hoped that later iterations of LISSA-like systems will combine larger field of view sensors and collecting apertures with a greater processing capability so the catalogue correlation and orbit improvement processes can be undertaken on orbit, or alternatively the quantity of data required for transmission to the ground can be greatly reduced.
Date of Conference: September 16-19, 2025
Track: Space-Based Assets