Practical Method to Identify Orbital Anomaly as Breakup Event in the Geostationary Region.

摘要

Orbital anomalies observed in the geostationary region are suspected to originate in breakup. This granted study aims to identify these orbital anomalies as breakup events by actual ground-based optical surveys and origin identifications of uncorrelated targets. Previous work proposed an effective search strategy applicable for breakup fragments in the geostationary region by predicting the population and the motion of fragmentation debris. This paper details the strategy and reports the actual observation applications. The observation was performed at Bisei Spaceguard Center, Okayama, Japan. Two breakup events are selected as targets for observation campaigns. Both are US Titan 3C Transtages. As a result of the observation of 1968-081E, thirty-one uncorrelated targets were detected and the orbits of seven objects were successfully determined. The origin identification of the seven objects was conducted with the determined orbits, and one object is correlated with 1968-081E. Moreover, two objects are associated with unconfirmed breakups of the US Titan 3C Transtages of 1973-040B and 1975-118C. The orbits of the two uncorrelated objects and the motions well matched with the predicted populations and motions of the parent objects. As a result of the observation of 1967-066G, five uncorrelated objects were detected, and the orbits of two objects were well estimated. However, both objects are not associated with the target or the other candidates.