Satellite Will Keep An Eye Space Debris
An Air Force satellite that will provide the first continuous tracking of thousands of pieces of space debris and hundreds of satellites is set to launch on Thursday.
The new Space-Based Space Surveillance (SBSS) satellite is set to launch from Vandenberg Air Force Base, Calif., and will give scientists a full-time view of the increasingly congested traffic in Earth’s orbit.
The Air Force currently lacks such a system, and must rely instead on a ground-based global network of radar and optical telescopes to track roughly 1,000 active satellites and 20,000 pieces of space debris.
But the telescopes are only useful on clear nights, and only some of the radar stations are strong enough to detect satellites in deep space orbit 22,000 miles above the Earth’s surface.
The new satellite, however, will orbit some 390 miles above the Earth, and will have an unobstructed view of deep space, independent of daylight or weather.
“It really has tremendous capabilities,” Todd Citron, director of advanced space and intelligence systems for Boeing Co., said in an interview with the Associated Press (AP).Â
Boeing is the primary contractor for the new satellite.
SBSS will transform “space situational awareness,” Citron added, referring to the military term for being aware of not only where objects are located, but also where they are headed and what their likely path will be.
However, the Air Force took a more guarded tone about the initiative.
“We do know that the sensor is going to provide a lot of capability,” said Col. J.R. Jordan, mission director for the SBSS launch and vice commander of the Air Force Space Superiority Systems Wing.
“We haven’t really come up with broad statements” regarding the extent to which the SBSS will enhance monitoring, Jordan told AP.
The satellite, built by Boulder, Colorado-based Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corp. in conjunction with Boeing, includes an optical camera on a swivel mount which allows the camera’s view to be altered without burning fuel to reposition the satellite.Â
The SBSS will focus on deep space satellites and debris, and will transmit information to ground stations here on Earth.
A command center at Schriever Air Force Base in Colorado will run the day-to-day operations for the SBSS once it is in orbit.
Including ground-control facilities, the SBSS system cost half a billion dollars to build, and is the first satellite dedicated exclusively to space situational awareness, Jordan said.
The previous Air Force space surveillance network included partial use of a satellite known as the Midcourse Space Experiment, which is no longer functioning. That system tracked missiles but could also monitor other objects in orbit.
Brian Weeden, a former Air Force space operations officer who now works with the Colorado-based Secure World Foundation, a think tank and advocacy group for the use of space, said millions of pieces of space debris are currently in orbit around the Earth. These range from dead satellites to small pellets of escaped coolant to spent rocket stages.
The Air Force tracks objects that are at least 4 inches in diameter — large enough to destroy a satellite or a module of the International Space Station in a collision, Weeden told the AP. Almost all of this debris is man-made, since natural objects trapped in the Earth’s orbit are typically smaller.
The military shares some of the information it gathers with civil and commercial space operators, who can then reposition satellites or the space station to avoid any potential collisions.
In his National Space Policy issued Monday, President Obama vowed U.S. cooperation with other nations on monitoring debris.
The new SBSS will not continuously track objects, but will instead make periodic spot checks, and use the information to predict trajectories.
The entire network will collect about 400,000 observations daily, the AP reported, citing Air Force sources.
Space debris has collided with satellites on at least two previous occasions: in 1996, when a rock fragment damaged French satellite, and again in 2009, when an Iridium Communications satellite was destroyed in a collision with an abandoned Russian satellite.
Iridium said it received no warning before the crash, but has since been receiving more accurate data from the government.
In a move that triggered criticism from the U.S. and others, China purposely destroyed one of its own satellites with a missile in a test in 2007, generating some 2,400 pieces of debris at least 2 inches in diameter.
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