Emma Kerr, Defence Science Technology Laboratory (Dstl)
Keywords: Space Domain Awareness, Requirements, Strategy, System of Systems
Abstract:
With the recent stand-up of the UK Space Command in April 2021, the UK now has both civil and military agencies dedicated to Space, including Space Domain Awareness (SDA). The UK government has directed these agencies to coordinate their activities, in order to get best value for the UK. The UK strives to be a responsible and safe space actor; in order to do this effectively we have developed a framework of requirements for Space Domain Awareness to support procurement, research and development, and policy decision making. The UKs first set of Space Domain Awareness Requirements have therefore been developed as a cross-government initiative, pulling in experience and knowledge from both civil and military agencies. This paper will discuss the Requirements, their history, as well as how they are utilised in practice, the challenges in developing them, and the future work to be done.
The Requirements were developed to inform the development of a system of systems, including the entire SDA chain from sensors and data processing through to readouts for policy makers. This system of systems approach means that eventually the Requirements can be used to underpin every piece of research, every procurement and every policy decision made by UK agencies for SDA. The UKs space strategic direction centres on: Own, Collaborate, Access. Recognising that it is unnecessary to own sovereign systems to meet every SDA requirement, the UK is developing the system of systems utilising commercially available products and collaborating with allies, industry and academia to fill any gaps in currently available solutions, while pursuing purely sovereign options only as necessary.
The Requirements were initiated under a UK Space Agency (UKSA) study, conducted by Serco, looking at civil Space Surveillance and Tracking requirements. The initial set were then expanded by a cross-government working group led by Dstl (Defence Science and Technology Laboratory) to include requirements such as space object characterisation, which sit outside SST but within the wider SDA envelope. Following re-development, the initial Requirement set was taken through review and has now been endorsed by UKSA on the civil side and Space Command on the MOD side. However, development of the Requirements is ongoing with significant work planned to expand their scope and utility. It is envisaged that the Requirements will remain as a living document, to be revised on an annual basis. Currently, the requirements are heavily skewed towards the space segment, with some cross-over into ground and link segment, however work is ongoing to cover these areas more effectively, along with expanding the current requirements to include other areas, for example Space Control and Weather.
The requirements are split into User and System Requirements. The Requirements are mapped with forwards and backwards traceability, such that every system requirement can be traced back to a user requirement and a user can see every system requirement that derives from each user requirement. Due to the sensitive nature of some of the information contained in the Requirements some information has been redacted from the publically available version.
In line with the Own, Collaborate, Access model the Requirements are being currently being used across UK government to underpin ongoing and future procurements. By performing a gap analysis comparing currently available technologies and solutions against the requirements, a foundation for future research and development planning can be formed. Furthermore, they can also be used by UK and overseas industry and academia as signposts for the future SDA needs of UK agencies.
© Crown copyright (2023), Dstl. This material is licensed under the terms of the Open Government Licence except where otherwise stated. To view this licence, visit http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/doc/open-government-licence/version/3 or write to the Information Policy Team, The National Archives, Kew, London TW9 4DU, or email: psi@nationalarchives.gov.uk
Date of Conference: September 19-22, 2023
Track: Space Domain Awareness