Scientists from the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory are using mini-satellites that act as "space cops" to help control traffic in space.
To prove that it is possible to refine the orbits of other low earth orbit satellites, a series of six images from ground-based satellites were taken over a 60-hour period.
Lance Simms, lead author of the study, said in a press release, "Eventually our satellite will be orbiting and making the same sort of observations to help prevent satellite-on-satellite and satellite-on-debris collisions in space."
To help satellite operators with the increasing problem of space collisions, a constellation of nano-satellites in low earth orbit was launched. The Space-based Telescopes for Actionable Refinement of Ephemeris (STARE) mission, an ongoing project by LLNL led by Wim de Vries, intends to refine satellite orbits and space debris to less than 100 meters.
The Livermore team successfully refined the NORAD 27006 satellite based on the first four observations made within the first 24 hours. Over the following 36 hours, the team managed to predict its trajectory within less than 50 meters.
"This leads credence to the capability of STARE to accomplish its mission objectives," De Vries said as the tools and analysis used in capturing the image and refining NORAD's trajectory using the ground-based payload will be the same ones that will be used for the STARE mission.
Predicting the location of a low earth orbit satellite accurately at any given time is difficult due to the uncertainties and incompleteness of the equations of motion which leads to errors in position in velocity of satellites tracked in low earth orbit.
The Space Surveillance Network (SSN) repeatedly observes nearly 20,000 tracked objects to account for such errors but the positional uncertainty is still about 1 kilometer which leads to about 10,000 false alarms per expected collision. The STARE mission aims to reduce this uncertainty to 100 meters or smaller to bring the amount of false alarms down by two magnitudes.
The Livermore team reduced the uncertainty to 50 meters which is well below the 100 meter target.
The study will be published in the upcoming edition of Journal of Small Satellites.
