Ground Testing of Prototype Hardware and Processing Algorithms for a Wide Area Space Surveillance System (WASSS)
Abstract
We report the results of observations made at Magdalena Ridge Observatory using the prototype Wide Area Space Surveillance System (WASSS) camera, which has a 4 x 60 deg field-of-view, < 0.05 deg resolution, a 2.8 cm(expn 2) aperture, and the ability to view within 4 deg of the sun. A single camera pointed at the GEO belt provided a continuous nightlong record of the intensity and location of more than 50 GEO objects detected within the camera s 60 deg field-of-view, with a detection sensitivity similar to the camera s shot noise limit of m(sub v)=13.7. Performance is anticipated to scale with aperture area, allowing the detection of dimmer objects with larger-aperture cameras. The sensitivity of the system depends on multi-frame averaging and a Principal Component Analysis based image processing algorithm that filters out space objects based on their different angular velocities from those of celestial objects. Results are presented for a full night of viewing on October 16, 2012. Close to 100 space objects were detected, of which ~85 were identified.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Sep 01, 2013
- Accession Number
- ADA591374
Entities
People
- Daniel O. Fulcoly
- James Mclean
- Jeremy J. Murray-krezan
- Neil Goldstein
- Phan D. Dao
- Rainer A. Dressler
- Robert Shroll
- Steven C. Richtsmeier
Organizations
- Air Force Research Laboratory