APPLICATION OF THE ISON WIDE FIELD OF VIEW OPTICAL TELESCOPES FOR SPACE DEBRIS RESEARCH

摘要

International Scientific Optical Network at present is the only civilian non-governmental project which is covering whole GEO and producing significant data output for various purposes including scientific research of space debris problem as well as space situation awareness in the interests of commercial and other civilian spacecraft operators. New strategy of the ISONdevelopment foresees the large surveying of the sky using the wide field optical of view (FOV) telescopes capable to perform searching and tracking of the space objects at GEO, HEO and LEO orbits. In order to achieve this goal few series of the telescopes of apertures between 12.5 cm and 60 cm with wide FOV are elaborated under ISON project. During last year 12 new telescopes with FOV from 1.8 degree to 12.3 degree are produced. The dedicated software for automated CCD frame processing and mount control in the time of the surveys is elaborated. The wide field telescopes and new software are successfully tested during the observations of various space objects. The regular wide surveys of GEO are carried out now in Nauchny, Andrushivka and Ussuriysk, partial surveys are implemented in Kitab, Abastumani, Tiraspol, Mondy and Blagoveschensk. Thanks to using of the wide FOV telescopes in survey modes it is obtained 717473 measurements in 69811 tracks in 2008 (that is three times more comparing to 2007) and 540300 measurements in 54286 tracks in 2009 (to August 10).