Joseph Diamond, Peraton; Rich Osedacz, Peraton; Weihan Yang, Peraton; Matthew Sirocky, Peraton; Gregory Madsen, Lockheed Martin Australia; Abraham Chan, Lockheed Martin Australia; Timothy Payne, Lockheed Martin Australia; Matthew Bold, Lockheed Martin
Keywords: FireOpal, passive, persistence, custody, untasked, persistent, revisit, statistic, association, stastically-driven, real-time
Abstract:
The current SDA paradigm of optimizing and prioritizing collection of a tasked system poses challenges in today’s space domain where there is an ever-growing number of participants. It seems more probable that a critical space event will be missed, given the pressures to direct collection resources to “higher value” objects. Peraton and Lockheed Martin Australia are exploring an alternative approach to collaboratively demonstrate the potential of persistent, untasked optical observations that reduce the effective space object revisit rate to near zero. With this collection strategy, we propose to evaluate the use of uncued/untasked, very wide field, high-cadence optical observations utilized in conjunction with a statistically driven association/fusion processing engine. We hypothesize this paradigm will satisfy custody and resulting information needs on both benign and high-interest objects simultaneously, in near real-time.
Our primary goal is to understand whether this collection and processing methodology can result in persistent SDA custody, specifically with regards to objects in GEO, by reducing the effective revisit rate to approximately 10 seconds for observable objects. Our observation source leverages a repurposed meteorite-tracking system developed as part of an R&D partnership with Lockheed Martin Australia and Curtin University Space Science Technology Center, termed FireOPAL. The FireOPAL system is comprised of six ground-based optical sensors along the east coast of Australia covering sublongitudes 98E – 206E, with fields of view covering 20°x13°. Each of these sensors performs uncued/untasked nighttime operations (0800-2000Z), autonomously publishing astrometric observations on all objects in all orbit regimes. The resulting dataset is comprised of 200k+ observations of 2,000+ satellites per night. Peraton will process and fuse the observations to reconstruct orbit trajectories for both maneuvering and non-maneuvering objects alike. Peraton will apply our statistically driven fusion engine that is specifically designed to handle the observation rate and volume FireOPAL produces.
Exploiting this data to achieve SDA presents several notable challenges. Foremost, the observations produced do not include a pre-assigned/pre-associated space object identifiers. This ambiguity may present significant challenges to processing systems that rely on such pre-assignments. Further, observations collected in this way are not aggregated into tracks, rather each measurement is represented as a standalone observation. Finally, the rate and volume of this data presents an intrinsic challenge from a data processing and scalability standpoint. This study will evaluate whether Peraton’s mature statistically-driven association/custody processing software and tools are able to overcome these challenges. Peraton built this tool to perform observation association strictly based on astrometric measurements, irrespective of sensor-provided assignments, appropriately model and apply error to the observation association process, and handle large volumes of near-real-time observations.
In summary, this collaborative study aims to show the benefits of using untasked, continuous optical observations for space domain awareness. We will use Peraton software to process FireOPAL data, a system that tracks satellites and space debris with wide-field-of-view sensors. We will also address any issues with the data, assess the outcomes and implications for the broader SDA community, and compare our method with the conventional tasked approach. Our hypothesis is that by observing most GEO objects with passive sensors, we can reduce the revisit rate to almost zero and enable an SDA system to respond significantly faster to potential threats and hazards in space.
Date of Conference: September 17-20, 2024
Track: SDA Systems & Instrumentation