The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency has finished its work to integrate live data feeds from several sources into the U.S. Space Surveillance Network run by the Air Force in an effort to help space monitoring teams check when satellites are at risk.
SSN is a global network of 29 military radar and optical telescopes and DARPA added seven space data providers to the network to help monitor the space environment under its OrbitOutlook program, the agency said Wednesday.
DARPA plans to test the automated algorithms developed to determine relevant data from the integrated feed in order to help SSA experts carry out their mission.
“By including new telescopes and radar facilities based in diverse locales, and by revolutionizing how we process different data types, we anticipate vast improvements in our tracking of potentially hazardous objects and our ability to efficiently avoid collisions in space,†said Lt. Col. Jeremy Raley, a DARPA program manager.
SSN’s new data providers consist of four networks such as StellarView, SpaceView, EchoView and Low Inclined Low Earth Orbit Object detection initiative to consolidate data from various communities, plus three commercial and government networks ExoAnalytic Solutions, Raven and Rincon that provide a fee-for-service model.
DARPA will start to test the algorithm in the fall and then share the algorithm with the space-debris-tracking community through the DARPA Open Catalog if the demonstration succeeds.
