John McGraw (University of New Mexico), Mark R. Ackermann (Sandia National Laboratories)
Keywords: Telescopes, Instrumentation
Abstract:
Recent years have seen significant interest in optical-infrared (OIR) space surveillance capabilities to complement and supplement radar-based sensors. To address this legitimate need for OIR sensors, the Air Force Research Laboratory has been working on several projects intended to meet SSA requirements in practical, fieldable and affordable packages. In particular, while the PanStarrs system is primarily an astronomy project, their well-designed telescope(s) will have substantial SSA capability, but the system, based on four 1.8m apertures on the same mount, will be a fixed location asset. For world-wide deployment, we are studying a smaller “PanStarrs derived” system which would be replicable and inexpensive. A fixed set of telescope arrays would provide substantial SSA search and monitor capability. These telescopes are also designed to be deployed in pairs in a standard cargo container package for theater SSA.
With a 1.2m aperture and a 4.5deg FOV, each telescope would have the same etendue as its big brother PanStarrs telescope, but with image quality optimized for space surveillance rather than astronomy. The telescope is even scaled to use production PanStarrs focal plane arrays. A single 1.2m system has almost the same search rate for dim targets as any other system in development. Two such telescopes working together will exceed the performance of any SSA asset either in production or on the drawing boards. Because they are small they can be designed to be replicable and inexpensive and thus could be abandoned in place should the political climate at their deployment sites change for the worse.
Date of Conference: September 12-15, 2007
Track: Telescopes and Instrumentation