AN/FPS-108 COBRA DANE Space Surveillance Mission Evolution
Abstract
It has been ten years since the COBRA DANE radar was restored to continuous full power operations in a more dedicated role of space debris tracking. Over this time, the satellite catalog population has grown and the overall average RCS value of cataloged objects has decreased dramatically, due to a combination of breakups and collisions together with the increased sensitivity offered by COBRA DANE's support to the network. This shift in catalog composition places new challenges on COBRA DANE and other debris tracking radars (PARCS and Eglin/FPS-85) to consistently track the ever-increasing number of small objects. Space Surveillance Network radars now operate at the limits of their detection performance, tracking several thousand new objects in a size category that only the most powerful and sensitive radars can observe (i.e., < 10 cm diameter). However, for much of the last decade, COBRA DANE's inherent Spacetrack mission software functionality remained better tuned for its original support role against the larger (known) orbital objects than for its more modern role in acquiring and reporting small debris in an appreciable number -- that is, until now.
Several newly-identified software changes offer promise of significantly increased data yield that will make COBRA DANE an even more important asset for this evolving mission. In the course of assisting JSpOC, AFSPC, and USSTRATCOM with the ongoing challenges of lost satellite management, it was discovered that the radar's performance is being artificially restricted by mission software, rather than by the system's overall architectural design (power-aperture envelope and radar resources). This paper captures specific opportunities to improve COBRA DANE's Spacetrack mission performance, several of which are currently implemented and slated to become operational with the next two software releases. With one of the more prominent enhancements, COBRA DANE will be capable of autonomously 'fence tasking' all newly acquired small objects. Under the current operating paradigm, the radar detects satellites in its debris fences, correlates them to known (cataloged) objects, and subsequently drops the correlated objects from track, many times per day for thousands of objects. This response occurs under the (false) premise that the known objects will be successfully reacquired later by automatic satellite acquisition searches, when the objects are expected to present more optimal data collection passes, as determined by the radar's Spacetrack mission planning algorithm. Unfortunately, for the bulk of the challenging objects in question, this opportunity seldom presents itself and most reacquisition attempts are unsuccessful, causing the radar to effectively squander valuable surveillance resources that could be better applied to other Spacetrack functions. An important new change to the mission software will allow COBRA DANE to collect a predefined number of metric observations, spaced ten seconds apart, on correlated objects whether or not they are tasked by JSpOC, if they are sufficiently small as determined by radar operator input. This change is projected to provide an enormous increase in COBRA DANE's output on the smallest objects in the satellite catalog and analyst satellite list, and will greatly improve the completeness and quality of the JSpOC small object catalog.- Publication:
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Advanced Maui Optical and Space Surveillance Technologies Conference
- Pub Date:
- September 2013
- Bibcode:
- 2013amos.confE..63C