Increasing space domain awareness

There are thousands of satellites operating in the Earth’s orbit, some of which provide communications, navigation and other critical functions to our defence and security forces.

However, there are even more resident space objects (RSOs) orbiting the Earth which include functioning satellites and spacecraft, but also debris from launches, space flight or malfunction/destruction of decommissioned assets.

Operating satellites colliding with RSOs is a growing concern, and with space increasingly becoming a contested domain, it is becoming more vital that we develop space domain awareness which is essentially knowing what is where and when in the orbital regions, much like how air traffic control on Earth keeps track of all aircraft.

Currently, most monitoring of RSOs is done from ground-based facilities but Professor Tat-Jun Chin’s team is looking at how we can conduct this monitoring from space itself.

He explains "Groundbased sensors can be limited by clouds or windows of time when an object is visible from the sensor’s location. We want to do the monitoring in space so there are no visual restrictions and longer observation windows. It is demonstrable that cameras mounted on satellites could detect and track objects much more effectively than ground-based facilities."

"We are developing algorithms which can make decisions about where to point the camera. With so many objects to watch, how do you choose which to track at any given time? How do you maximise the chances of spotting something which isn’t already known about? We need to be able to make observations at scale and use artificial intelligence to sift through the data and create space domain awareness for analysts back on Earth. This awareness can be used to ensure newly launched rockets aren’t headed straight into the path of existing debris but it is also vital for our defence and security industry as understanding what is where is crucial before any operational decisions are made."

"The space-based surveillance system has been concept-tested on Earth and we are working towards testing on a live satellite hopefully in upcoming missions."