COMPUTER SYSTEMS AND ALGORITHMS FOR SPACE SITUATIONAL AWARENESS: HISTORY AND FUTURE DEVELOPMENT

摘要

There is a growing international need for Space Situational Awareness (SSA),rndefined as knowledge of objects in Earth orbit and the space environment. Uprnuntil recently, the majority of SSA has primarily been done by the UnitedrnStates and Russia, which currently operate significant space surveillance trackingrnnetworks and maintain catalogs of space objects. These efforts are largelyrndone for military and national security purposes. More recently, the EuropeanrnSpace Agency (ESA) has initiated an SSA Program which will build upon existingrnEuropean ground-based radar and optical sensors to develop a EuropeanrnSSA system. Emerging space States, particularly in South Asia, are also lookingrnto develop SSA capabilities to support increased military use of space andrnto protect civil and commercial space assets. This paper outlines the history ofrnmathematical algorithms and computer systems development used for spacernsurveillance and space object catalog work primarily in the United States andrnto a lesser degree in Russia. It also analyses the advantages and disadvantagesrnof various techniques and approaches and how the accuracy and developmentrnof SSA data products has been impacted by events. Based on the analysis ofrnthe traditional SSA software shortcomings and these new possibilities, the paperrnoutlines a new initiative to develop an open source software package thatrncombines a variety of features and algorithms in a package that is open to usernand development by all.