Tanner Campbell, University of Arizona; Andrew Avalos, University of Arizona; Daniel Gray, Sidereal Technology; Scott Tucker, Starizona; Vishnu Reddy Kanupuru, University of Arizona
https://doi.org/10.64861/LVHV5767
Keywords: GEO Characterization, COTS sensor system
Abstract:
The Stingray sensor system is a 15-camera optical array dedicated to an autonomous nightly astrometric and photometric survey of the Geosynchronous Earth Orbit (GEO) belt visible above Tucson, Arizona. After an extensive development phase including 220 nights of on-sky testing, results from the initial 31-night survey phase show an aggregate photometric uncertainty of 0.062 magnitudes with a standard deviation of 0.008 magnitudes and astrometric accuracy consistent with theoretical sub-pixel centroid limits. We present here updated results from the Stingray sensor system (development and deployment published in [1]) with recent updates to the command and control (C&C) and improvements to the performance. The refactored C&C software greatly improved system reliability and was hardware-in-the-loop tested for 270 nights of shadow mode operations to verify functionality during final development. Subsequently, an additional 38-night on-sky survey validated the new system performance. There are approximately 200 near-GEO satellites on any given night that fall within the Stingray field of regard, and those with a GAIA G magnitude brighter than approximately 15.5 are measured by the automated data reduction pipeline. The Stingray data products are astrometric and photometric measurements of these satellites, which allows the production of all-night phase curves of 3-axis stabilized satellites and periodic light curves for rotating/defunct objects. The period un-wrapping of the rotating object light curves also yields an analogous phase curve for the object. Approximately 7,200 images are collected on an ideal night, and the automated data processing pipeline can either work in near-real-time or in batch. With near-real-time processing, measurements of all can be processed and made available through the UDL or other means within 180 seconds. In batch mode, it takes an average of 18.5 minutes to analyze all the data at the end of the night.
Date of Conference: September 15-18, 2026
Track: SDA Systems & Instrumentation