Space Surveillance System

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Space surveillance telescope

A space surveillance system is a network of telescopes and radar systems that is used to maintain a catalog of artificial space objects (operational satellites , space junk ). Systems of this type are currently operated by the United States and Russia . The ESA is building as part of its SSA program on its own monitoring system.

The US Space Surveillance Network (SSN)

This system consists of 17 radars and 8 telescopes. A space-based sensor, the Space Based Visible Telescope, is also used. The number of space objects currently being tracked by the Space Surveillance Network (SSN) is currently around 13,000. However, currently only data for around 8,600 objects are openly accessible. Depending on the orbit, the smallest of the objects in the catalog have a diameter of 5 cm ( near-Earth orbit ) to 50 cm ( geostationary orbit ). Radars are advantageous for nearby objects and optical telescopes for distant objects.

GEODSS facility on Diego Garcia

In addition to the search for new objects, the cataloged objects are alternately briefly observed in order to update their path data, several times a day for objects in the vicinity. The large amount of data may come. a. of telescopes ( Ground-based Electro-Optical Deep Space Surveillance for short GEODSS ) on Maui , Diego Garcia , Socorro in New Mexico and of phased-array radars such as Thule , Eglin and Cobra Dane , which are not so sensitive to small objects, but discover larger objects faster thanks to their electronically pivotable beam - a military requirement.

The French GRAVES

GRAVES ( French grand réseau adapté à la veille spatiale ) is a French military radar system that has been in operation since 2005 and is used to determine the orbit of artificial earth satellites .

The Russian SKKP

Russia operates a surveillance system called SKKP ( Russian Система контроля космического пространства ).

See also

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