Sue Lederer, NASA Johnson Space Center Orbital Debris Program Office; Corbin Cruz, Jacobs; Brent Buckalew, NASA Orbital Debris Program Office; Paul Hickson, University of British Columbia; Randall Alliss, Northrop Grumman Corporation
Keywords: orbital debris, optical telescope, modeling, autonomous observing
Abstract:
Full Operational Capability, or FOC, has been achieved for the NASA ES-MCAT telescope (Eugene Stansbery Meter Class Autonomous Telescope). MCAT is now fully capable of autonomously running all observations, including: (a) monitoring weather and closing when conditions are not safe, as well as halting observations when conditions are not suitable (e.g. too cloudy) for operations, (b) start-up/shut-down nightly tasking, (c) collecting calibration data and survey or TLE-tracked data, and (d) processing all collected data. The processed data are then further analyzed at NASA Johnson Space Center to correlate detections with known objects in the Space Surveillance Network (SSN) catalogue.
The primary goal for MCAT is to survey the geosynchronous (GEO) belt to provide a statistical sample of the GEO debris environment for both engineering and long-term environment evolutional purposes. The ORbital Debris Engineering Model (ORDEM) provides spacecraft designers and users with a quantitative approach to design their spacecraft and missions to minimize risk from debris impacts (e.g., to aid in shielding design). MCAT can also collect data of specific objects with known orbits or can search for objects with orbits similar to those of spacecraft or rocket bodies that have recently broken up.
The approach for sweeping the sky to statistically survey GEO has been investigated and updated from past surveys taken by NASA and will be reported. In addition, MCATs capabilities to track objects, and the limiting magnitude for the full optical system will be discussed. An analysis of expected values includes combining the reflectivity of both mirrors, transmission of the field corrector and CCD window, and the quantum efficiency of the detector, resulting in throughput of the full optical path. This throughput is then combined with the expected typical transparency of the atmosphere at MCATs altitude/location for the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) gri’z and Johnson/Kron-Cousins BVRI filters to yield expected limiting magnitudes. These expected values will be compared with observations to better understand the completeness of a GEO surveys.
Date of Conference: September 15-18, 2020
Track: Orbital Debris