Greg Madsen, Lockheed Martin; Phil Bland, Curtin University; Matthew Bold, Advanced Technology Center; Robert Howie, Curtin University; Ben Hartig, Curtin University; Trent Jansen-Sturgeon, Curtin University; James Mason, Lockheed Martin Advanced Technology Center; Liam Smith, Lockheed Martin Advanced Technology Center; Dane McCormack, Lockheed Martin Advanced Technology Center; Rod Drury, Lockheed Martin Advanced Technology Center
Keywords: Optical SSA, autonomous sensors
Abstract:
FireOPAL is a distributed network of standalone, fixed mount optical sensors that is designed to monitor a large number of RSOs at high cadence. The system reports measurements to a central server in near real time, which are then used for orbit determination and catalogue maintenance. The central server provide alerts of anomalous behaviour and other warnings within minutes of the observations. Here we describe the technical performance of the system, including the onboard processing that delivers tens of thousands of measurements each night of angles, range, and light curves for objects in LEO, MEO, and GEO. For each 5 second integration image, we find that FireOPAL measures angles with an accuracy of a few arcseconds, measures absolute time within milliseconds, estimates range to within 5%, and measures absolute flux to within 10% with a point source sensitivity of 14th mag (5-sigma). We also report on the capture rate of objects of different sizes and in different orbital regimes, and ongoing plans to improve the network performance, including machine learning for streak detection.
Date of Conference: September 11-14, 2018
Track: Poster