Space Situational Awareness Forum Following another very successful conference in London in November 2014, Space Situational Awareness 2015 took place in Hyattsville, Maryland in May 2015, with over 60 SSA experts from all over the globe coming together to discuss the most pressing SSA challenges. With increasing dependence on space-based services, the ability to protect space infrastructure has become essential to our society. Any shutdown of even a part of space infrastructures could have significant consequences for the well-functioning of economic activities and our citizens’ safety, and would impair the provision of emergency services. However, space infrastructures are increasingly threatened by the risk of collision between spacecraft and more importantly, between spacecraft and space debris. As a matter of fact, space debris has become the most serious threat to the sustainability of certain space activities. In order to mitigate the risk of collision it is necessary to identify and monitor satellites and space debris, catalogue their positions, and track their movements (trajectory) when a potential risk of collision has been identified, so that satellite operators can be alerted to move their satellites. This activity is known as space surveillance and tracking (SST), and is today mostly based on ground-based sensors such as telescopes and radars. With a focus on solving the political issues but not ignoring the technical, Space Situational Awareness 2015 the leading gathering of dedicated SSA experts from the USA, Europe and beyond, to discuss and debate the business, political and technical challenges that lie ahead. Take a look at our previous Space Situation Awareness event… Who should attend Space Situational Awareness? Space Situational Awareness 2015 is a community of experts from Government, Space Agencies, Satellite/Spacecraft Operators, Space Lawyers, Space Insurance providers and Defense who are looking to understand and predict the physical location of natural and manmade objects in orbit around the Earth, with the objective of avoiding collisions. How can you get involved in Space Situational Awareness? If you feel that you could add to the debate and discussion at Space Situational Awareness, we’d be delighted to hear from you. Please drop us a line on +44(0)7769157787 or email me at adam.plom@coriniumintelligence.com.

1. SMARTnet –Results of Test
Campaigns
Hauke Fiedler, Thomas Schildknecht, Martin Weigel, Michael
Meinel, Rolf Hempel, Johannes Herzog, Marcel Prohaska, Martin
Ploner, Jan Siminski
www.DLR.de • Folie 1

2. Processed Conjunctions
2012 2013 2014
Satellite Altitude CSM CAM CSM CAM CSM/CDM CAM
TSX/TDX
(excl.tdtx)
510 16 2 2222
(1560)
0 7366
(4237)
4
GRACE-1 460 (-400) 1 0 0 0 0 0
GRACE-2 460 (-400) 1 0 2 0 0 0
BIR 510 (-480) 8 0 0 0 10 0
TET 500 (-460) 3 0 1 0 0 0
SBW-1
(excl.ctrl)
GEO 35
(6)
1 19
(6)
0 110
(8)
0
SBW-2
(excl.ctrl)
GEO 59
(0)
0 135
(2)
0 224
(6)
0
- CSM generation thresholds for TSX/TDX were enlarged August 2013
- Message format was changed to CDM in May 2014
www.DLR.de • Folie 2
 Precise orbit information of (all) objects required
 Sensors for: LEO (expansive) – GEO (not so expansive)

3. www.DLR.de • Folie 3
10.02.2009Motivation: Operational Collision Avoidance at GSOC
TerraSAR-X (2007-) / TanDEM-X (2010-)
- Controlled against a reference orbit inside a tube of 250 m radius
- Flying in a close formation with the relative distance < 500 m
- 510 km altitude
Conjunction on 2014/03/03

4. SMARTnet
Optical Network for Monitoring
Geostationary Orbits
www.DLR.de • Folie 4

5. Global network for monitoring the geostationary ring
• Theory: complete coverage with 3 locations
• Northern / southern hemisphere for compensating
seasonal variations  6 locations
• Telerobotical operation
• Close cooperation with AIUB / ZIMsmart-telescope
• Optimized scheduler for all telescopes
SMART-01:
• Mounting with 2 telescopes
Ø50cm, 0.7° FOV, 0.6“/Pixel
Ø20cm, 2.0° FOV, 1.8“/Pixel
• Sutherland Observatory, South Africa
Motivation: Operational Collision Avoidance in GEO
www.DLR.de • Folie 5

6. Global network for monitoring the geostationary ring
• Theory: complete coverage with 3 locations
• Northern / southern hemisphere for compensating
seasonal variations  6 locations
• Telerobotical operation
• Close cooperation with AIUB / ZIMsmart-telescope
• Optimized scheduler for all telescopes
SMART-01:
• Mounting with 2 telescopes
Ø50cm, 0.7° FOV, 0.6“/Pixel
Ø20cm, 2.0° FOV, 1.8“/Pixel
• Sutherland Observatory, South Africa
Motivation: Operational Collision Avoidance in GEO
www.DLR.de • Folie 6
Sutherland
Zimmerwald
---- Sunset
 Sunrise
Integrated Obs-Time:
Average > 11.5h!

7. Motivation: Operational Collision Avoidance in GEO
www.DLR.de • Folie 7
Coverage: - 32% of geostationary ring
- 61% of active satellites
Coverage: - 83% of geostationary ring
- 89% of active satellites
Coverage: - 100% of geostationary ring
- 100% of active satellites

8. Status
• Mounting, 50cm telescope
and CCD camera tested
• Serveral nights
• Objects down to 18.5mag
detected
• First 2 nights:
• Long test run: May – June
o 46 COSPAR Objects
o 14 AIUB Objects
o 10 unknown objects
Geostationary object
Tracklet: Epoch + RA / DEC from image
SMARTnet: Test Campaign at Zimmerwald
www.DLR.de • Folie 8

9. Object Identification with Optical Measurements
Least squares fit
New measurement type:
Attributable
www.DLR.de • Folie 9

10. Loss function L
Optimisation Lambert-Solution
www.DLR.de • Folie 10
Object Identification with Optical Measurements

11. • Separation of real / false tracklets above threshold of loss function (chi-
squared distribution)
• Filter rate depends on accuracy, time difference, survey strategy, …
Object Correlation
www.DLR.de • Folie 11

12. Maximum
161m
84m
78m
74m
71m
64m
www.DLR.de • Folie 12
Residuals to GPS Reference Orbit
New focusser, telescope fully collimated
 Improvement: schedule observations for orbit refinement

13. Results: GEO Cluster (Eutelsat Hotbird 13B, 13C, 13D)
• 111 Tracklets of two nights
(Sep. 25/26, 26/27)
• TLE orbits lead to erroneous
correlation (06032A?)
• Iterative process: correlation,
orbit determination,
correlation…
• Residuals orbit determination
06032A RMS α=0.25“ δ=0.35“
08065A RMS α=0.30“ δ=0.34“
09008B RMS α=0.29“ δ=0.34“
• Final solution after 3rd iteration
with correlation of all tracklets
www.DLR.de • Folie 13

14. • Hardware and software components are tested
o Astrometric accuracy better than expected
o Limiting magnitude of telescope estimated
o Detection of unknown objects
o Identification of known objects
o Orbit determination with very small deviation to reference orbit
• Foundations in South Africa are planned this month
• Final end-to-test in Zimmerwald / Switzerland: Scheduling,
observing, pre-processing, transferring data to GSOC, cataloguing
at GSOC with BACARDI in autonomous mode
• Start of operations: end of 2015
Results
www.DLR.de • Folie 14
What is BACARDI?

15. BACARDI
Backbone Catalogue of Relational
Debris Information
Visit of Paul Cefola, / 09. October 2012
www.DLR.de • Folie 15

16. Science and Research
• Data bank of up to 1.000.000 objects
• HPC for object correlation, orbit determination,
propagation, object identification and detection
of manoeuvres and fragmentations
Mission Support
• Orbit information, collision prediction, re-entry prediction
Objective
• Data bank with preferably high completeness
and high accuracy
• Primary source: sensor data and operator data
• Secondary source: externally generated
ephemerides
BACARDI: Backbone Catalogue of Relational Debris
Information
www.DLR.de • Folie 16

17. Network of sensors
Prozessors
Interfaces
Tracking Radar Surveillance Radar Laser Tracking TelescopesSpace Based
External Data
Orbit information Object properties User Sensor schedulerSolar activity
Data bank
• Sensor data
• Correlation
• Catalogue objects and candidates
• Ephemerides incl. covariance
• Maneuver planned / executed
• Meta- and log data
• Data policy
• Object correlation
• Orbit determination
• Orbit propagation
• Maneuver detection
• Fragmentation detection
• Prediction of collisions
• Re-Entry prediction
BACARDI
BACARDI Overview
www.DLR.de • Folie 17
(provenance data)

18. BACARDI: Internal Nodes
www.DLR.de • Folie 18
SensorOrganisation
Observation
Observation Error
Correction of Observations
Sensor Error Statistic
Object
TLE
Osculating
Elements
Ephemeris
DSST
Orbit
TLE Error Statistic
Manoeuvre
Satellite Launch
Fragmentation
Re-Entry
CA (Close
Approach)
Orbit Propagation
Orbit Modelling
Space Weather
Time & Coordinate
System
Orbit Determination
CA Analysis /
Warning
CA Detection
CA Threshold
Correlation

19. Features
• Definable roles for each user
• Each individual datum might has its own data policy
• Possibility of a distributed system
• Data Provenance: Provenance is information about entities, activities,
and people involved in producing a piece of data or thing, which can
be used to form assessments about its quality, reliability or
trustworthiness.
o Backtracking of each produced product (ephemerides, state
vectors, correlated objects, …)
o Reproducibility of products and data generated
BACARDI
www.DLR.de • Folie 19

20. Conclusions
www.DLR.de • Folie 20
• Collision analyses cost manpower, maneuver costs mission
time
• Precise orbit information essential (ephemeris - including
covariance - is required, no knowledge of object necessary)
• No information of all objects with sufficient accuracy
publically available
• Desirable: information about satellite status, post mission
disposal in GEO, and maneuvers
• SMARTnet and BACARDI set up as a GEO surveillance
system
Suggestion: open catalogue for satellite operators
with highly accurate orbit information

21. www.DLR.de • Folie 21
Thanks for Your Attention!
Re-Entry Predictions 2012