Satellite detection and tracking capabilities of the Australian National University

Abstract

With ever rising amounts of satellites and debris in orbit, tracking capabilities need to be increased and upgraded on a global scale to keep up with the continuous growth of objects to be tracked in orbit. It is important to have more sensors distributed all over the world to support space traffic management (STM) and space situational awareness (SSA) efforts. Also needed is a variety of sensors with different capabilities accommodating the different characteristics of different satellites in different orbits, so that different features of satellites can be measured. Telescope facilities solely dedicated for the purpose of STM and SSA are expensive to build and mostly not yet commercially viable, especially when new techniques are being developed to improve detection and extent tracking times. The Australian National University (ANU) is expanding their operational capabilities with respect to conventional astronomical telescope operation and is investing in the establishment of an Optical Communications Ground Station (OCGS) capable of detecting and tracking satellites. Furthermore, ANU has identified how their established and future optical telescopes, originally designed for astronomical applications, can also be operated to support space situational awareness research and is putting considerable effort into implementing SSA detection and tracking capability into established and newly developed facilities. In this paper, we are presenting how the aforementioned OCGS dedicated to develop and operate satellite laser communication technology in the visible and SWIR, can also be used to host a satellite detection and tracking facility. We provide an update about the progress on the OCGS development and its expected tracking performance. We also provide a brief overview of two other astronomical telescopes SkyMapper and the DREAMS telescope. SkyMapper is an already established optical telescope dedicated to a Southern sky survey in the visible, but also capable of geostationary satellite detection; the Dynamic REd All-sky Monitoring Survey (DREAMS) telescope is suitable for satellite detection in low Earth orbit in the short wave infrared (SWIR).