Amelia Bloom, Ball Aerospace; Joshua Wysack, Ball Aerospace; Jacob D. Griesbach, Ball Aerospace; Anna Lawitzke, Ball Aerospace
Keywords: Space Domain Awareness; Space-based; Ground-based; Optical; Constellation
Abstract:
Most Space Domain Awareness (SDA) papers focus on either ground-based or space-based sensors. Both need to be utilized to provide optimal coverage of all space domains. As a community we are doing ourselves a disservice to silo ourselves into one sensor regime or another. To achieve space superiority, we need to use these sensors in concert with one another and optimize next-generation SDA funding to design architectures that draw upon the strengths that each sensors regime. This paper will lay out the differences between ground-based vs space-based sensors, provide benefits and drawbacks for each sensor type, and recommend a solution space for achieving actionable space surveillance in the geosynchronous SDA regime.
A survey of current ground-based sensors will be presented along with their limitations and strengths. Discussions will include future capabilities and SDA timeliness requirements for actionable data. Ground-based sensor benefits include low life-cycle cost and ease of maintenance/upgradeability. The limitations of ground-based sensors include limited geostationary orbit (GEO) observations due to landmass locations, solar noon outages, and weather outages.
Space-based sensors will be shown to provide enhance capabilities for tracking GEO resident space objects (RSOs). Space-based sensors can mitigate many of the ground-based sensor limitations. They are not subject to solar noon outages and depending on orbit, can have the potential to detect smaller targets based on greatly reduced range. One shortcoming of spaced-based sensors is that they are more expensive to build, field, replenish, and upgrade with often longer timelines than ground-based sensors. Comms are also often limited, reducing the amount of data that can be transmitted to the ground.
Gaps of the current state of space domain awareness GEO coverage will be discussed as well as potential gap fillers using a mixture of ground-based and spaced based sensors.
Date of Conference: September 27-20, 2022
Track: SSA/SDA