A New Undergraduate Course on the Physics of Space Situational Awareness

Abstract

As documented in the National Defense Authorization Act for fiscal year 2010, space situational awareness (SSA) is a high priority for the DoD and intelligence community. A fundamental understanding of the technical issues involved with SSA requires knowledge in many different scientific areas. The mission of the United States Air Force Academy (USAFA) is to educate, train, and inspire men and women to become officers of character motivated to lead the United States Air Force in service to our Nation. The physics department is implementing the USAFA mission and the need for technically competent officers in SSA through a comprehensive SSA Initiative. As part of the Initiative, we are developing a course to provide junior or senior cadets with the scientific background necessary to understand the challenges associated with SSA missions and systems. This presentation introduces the planned course objectives and includes a discussion of topics to be covered. Examples of topics include, optically resolved imaging, radiometry and photometry, radar detection and tracking, orbital prediction, debris and collision avoidance, detection of proximity operations and modeling and simulation tools. Cadets will have hands-on opportunities to collect metrics of a designated object using Academy assets such as the 41 cm telescope. Cadets will convert telescope gimbal angles into an orbital data. Cadets will synthesize what they learned in the course by completing the semester with a final project where the collected data is merged with a notional scenario to present a mock decision briefing. This class will be open to cadets of any academic major, since the intent is to prepare officers with basic technical competence in SSA applications.

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Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
Sep 01, 2009
Accession Number
ADA531796

Entities

People

  • Devin Della-rose
  • Francis K. Chun
  • John Clark
  • Joseph Liu
  • Matthew Mcharg
  • Michael Dearborn
  • Roger Tippets
  • Thomas Jost

Organizations

  • United States Air Force Academy

Tags

Communities of Interest

  • Space

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • Air Force
  • Department Of Defense
  • Military Operations
  • National Security
  • Operations Research
  • Optical Detectors
  • Political Science
  • Psychological Phenomena And Processes
  • Psychology
  • Situational Awareness
  • Space Objects
  • Space Situational Awareness
  • Space Surveillance
  • Systems Engineering
  • Telescopes
  • United States
  • United States Air Force Academy

Readers

  • Critical Infrastructure Protection in CBRN and WMD Threats.
  • Joint Military Operations and Doctrine.
  • STEM Education

Technology Areas

  • Space
  • Space - Space Objects