Activities of JAXA's Innovative Technology Center on Space Debris Observation

摘要

The innovative technology research center of JAXA is developing observation technology for GEO objects in order to deal with the space debris problem. The center constructed a space debris observation facility at Mt. Nyukasa, Nagano in 2006. The observational facility contains two telescopes and two large CCD cameras. The main objective of the facility is to establish technologies of detection un-cataloged GEO debris and determination their orbits and apply theses technologies to Bisei Spacegurad Center in Okayama. At this moment, GEO debris detection software that can detect unresolved objects in CCD frames is being developed, and a new orbital determination method that can determine orbits of many GEO objects effectively is being tested. This paper presents the details of the facility and research activities.