NUMERICA CORPORATION — Department of Defense SBIR Phase II: AF162-D002

Description

Space-based systems play an increasingly critical role in civilian life and national defense. The increasing number of debris objects and satellites in space, and the many small and dim objects that are difficult to detect and track, are leading to a more congested and contested space environment. The ability to maintain a catalog of all resident space objects is becoming increasingly challenging and continues to place a large burden on operational centers. Effectively performing the space situational awareness (SSA) mission in the future will necessitate pursuing alternative approaches to execute the function of space traffic cop that free up Government resources and get a better picture of the evolving space environment. Numerica has assembled an experienced team with the purpose of developing and demonstrating the ability of a global network of commercial and university telescopes to collect satellite tracking data to build and maintain a deep-space catalog with accuracy as good as or better than the U.S. Space Surveillance Network. Catalog completeness, accuracy, timeliness, robustness, and affordability will be enabled through the use of advanced algorithms and high-performance software, together with a dedicated network of custom Raven-class telescopes and many other contributing non-Government data sources.