{"id":67497,"date":"2017-08-16T01:54:22","date_gmt":"2017-08-15T17:54:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp-productionenv-bjg9h2g2bgg5b8aa.southeastasia-01.azurewebsites.net\/news\/are-optical-satellites-the-best-solution-to-monitor-orbital-debris\/"},"modified":"2017-08-16T01:54:22","modified_gmt":"2017-08-15T17:54:22","slug":"are-optical-satellites-the-best-solution-to-monitor-orbital-debris","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/news\/are-optical-satellites-the-best-solution-to-monitor-orbital-debris\/","title":{"rendered":"Are Optical Satellites the Best Solution to Monitor Orbital Debris?"},"content":{"rendered":"<\/p>\n

Australian nanosatellite startup Inovor Technologies<\/strong> has proposed a new potential solution to monitor orbital debris: using optical sensors from Low Earth Orbit (LEO) to track space junk further out in Geosynchronous Earth Orbit (GEO). According to Inovor\u2019s Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Matthew Tetlow, who spoke with Via Satellite<\/em> by email, optical systems are in fact the only feasible solution to provide Space Situational Awareness (SSA) in GEO because ground-based radar systems don\u2019t have the range to observe that far out in space.<\/p>\n

\u201cGround-based systems can be very large and able to detect very faint objects but they are restricted to operating at night and when the weather is clear. Space-based systems don\u2019t have the weather\/environment problem but they\u2019re expensive to deploy, especially with large optics. As such, there are not many out there,\u201d Tetlow said.<\/p>\n

The Joint Space Operations Center (JSpOC), located at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California, uses a mixture of technologies including the Space-Based Surveillance System (SBSS) to track objects in orbit. Still, the organization and others conducting similar work rely largely on ground-based radar and optical systems spread across the globe. As a result of these limited sensors, JSpOC is only able to consistently track objects between 1cm and 10cm \u2014 approximately the size of a softball \u2014 despite the fact that an object as small as a marble is potentially enough to destroy a spacecraft. According to Tetlow, Inovor will contribute an additional layer of support, as it can track most objects of interest \u201cbut more importantly, offer a new capability of near-persistent tracking of any particular object,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

However, as Tetlow admits, using small optics in LEO to find even smaller objects in GEO is not an easy task. \u201cThe further away you are from an object, the larger the optic required to capture the object and distinguish it from a nearby object. In addition to this you need the image resolution to be high enough to have each pixel represent a small enough area out where the object is that you can resolve its position,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

To bolster the accuracy of its system, Inovor will incorporate statistical analysis to estimate a particular object\u2019s location once it\u2019s detected. The benefit of having multiple nanosatellites in the constellation is that they can take more than one observation of the same object to more precisely hone in on its location. \u201cBeing able to resolve an object is different from being able to detect it. With long integration times and novel image processing techniques we expect to be able to detect fairly faint objects out at GEO, but won\u2019t know exactly where it is inside the pixel view, hence the use of the statistical methods based on multiple observations,\u201d Tetlow said.<\/p>\n

According to Tetlow, Inovor will buy its sensors from a partner organization, most likely an Australian defense prime contractor. The optic will be a Cassegrain reflector, he said, similar to optical telescopes, and will be able to achieve a resolution better than 2m in the visible bands.<\/p>\n

Inovor tested its first nanosatellite on-orbit in April along with 50 other CubeSats launched as part of the European-funded QB50 project. One of the biggest takeaways from the company\u2019s first launch, Tetlow said, was that Commercial Off-the-Shelf (COTS) components aren\u2019t as low-risk as they are perceived to be. \u201cThese are complex subsystems that are essentially \u2018black boxes\u2019 as the customer has very little information about how the system actually works and, as such, it is very difficult to troubleshoot when you are working with multiple COTS parts. I think this is why vendors are moving to supply whole buses instead of components and subsystems,\u201d he explained.<\/p>\n

Inovor continues to tweak the design of its optical nanosatellites, and will display the technology this September at the International Astronautical Congress (IAC) in Adelaide.<\/p>\n

Adelaide, and South Australia as a whole, is quickly becoming a tech hub, home to other space startups including Fleet<\/strong> <\/strong>and Neumann Space<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

Like his peers, Tetlow noted that he too fully supports the creation of a national space body, especially given the rapidly growing space startup community in South Australia. \u201cI hope it will bring focus to the growing space industry by providing a clear point of contact for international space agencies to connect with to build collaborative international space projects. We have some niche capabilities in Australia, but no one in government is out there supporting its development or selling it to international space players,\u201d he said. \u201cI also hope the agency comes with some funding to kick off the growing space industry.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Australian nanosatellite startup Inovor Technologies has proposed a new potential solution to monitor orbital debris: using optical sensors from Low Earth Orbit (LEO) to track space junk further out in Geosynchronous Earth Orbit (GEO). According to Inovor\u2019s Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Matthew Tetlow, who spoke with Via Satellite by email, optical systems are in fact the only feasible solution […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":67188,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-67497","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67497"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=67497"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67497\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/67188"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=67497"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=67497"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=67497"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}