Space-Based Observations of Satellites From the MOST Microsatellite

摘要

On October 12th 2005, Canada's MOST spacecraft acquired Canada's first microsatellitebased observations of a deep space satellite. MOST repeated this success by conducting an observation on a different spacecraft the following day. This report summarizes the experimental setup, access particulars, metric and photometry data. Comparison of the derived orbital metric data with high precision ephemerides yielded root mean square errors of 13 arcseconds. The errors are shown to result largely from timing uncertainties inherent in the MOST spacecraft. The space-based photometric measurements of these spacecraft were consistent with ground based observations. Analysis of these results indicates that microsatellite platforms show technical promise as a low cost means to conduct space surveillance from an orbiting platform.