Giovanni M. Del Genio, Italian Air Force; Capt. Jacopo Paoli, Italian Air Force; Enrico Del Grande, Italian Air Force; Maj. Ferdinando Dolce, Italian Air Force; Lt.Col. Walter Villadei, Italian Air Force, Capt. Marco Reali, Italian Air Force, NCO; Andrea Aquillini
Keywords: radar telescope data fusion space debris
Abstract:
Italian Ministry of Defence is developing a sensor architecture for a national Space Surveillance & Tracking (SST) capability in order to protect its own space and satellite assets and infrastructure against the damage or destruction from collision with other space debris in LEO orbit. This national capability has recently joined the European Union SST Consortium, that is now facing the huge challenge of gradually becoming self-sufficient and independent in producing an integrated international space surveillance network. The national architecture will be composed of both radars and optical sensors since they have different capability and provide complementary type of information regarding targeted object. Collected data from networked sensors will be sent to an integration centre in order analyze it and make the orbit determination of the detected space debris using specific software tools. In this paper we briefly describe the potential capabilities of such architecture and the results of a preliminary radar-optical sensor data fusion experiment carried out with a monostatic long range radar and a telescope managed by Italian Air Force for the detection of a subset of space objects in LEO orbit. In particular, the optical sensor is a telescope properly designed for SST and is able to observe the portion of space above it with a coverage of 360°x90° in azimuth and elevation. The telescope is equipped with two CCD sensors: one with a wide field of view used for surveillance tasks and the second with a narrow field dedicated for tracking specific objects. The sensor is managed by an operating software system that allows user to remotely plan and schedule its daily activity and to make orbit determination and collision risk assessment in a completely automated way.
Date of Conference: September 15-18, 2015
Track: Adaptive Optics & Imaging