Weather Considerations for Ground-Based Optical Space Situational Awareness Site Selection

摘要

Continuous surveillance of the night sky with ground-based optical sensors requires a number of sites distributed around the globe. Due to variable cloud cover, the number of sites required to guarantee nightly observation of all Geosynchronous Earth Orbit slots is greater than that simply required to provide partial coverage. Combining this consideration with the requirements for dark sky sites and adequate supporting infrastructure presents additional limitations on where ground-based telescopes can be located. The authors examine this problem and present results of an optimization approach that can both recommend sites and networks of sites, as well as provide insight into the utility of any individual geographic location.