According to Atkins, the network “pings anywhere from 380,000 to 420,000 observations per day,” referring to the number of times the system measures the orbits of the 23,000 objects it is currently able to track. And even with this capability, there remain hundreds of thousands of pieces of debris too small for the system, to track and catalog. And they are still capable of causing catastrophic damage to spacecraft and satellites.
If the network detects a possible collision, the satellite operator must then carry out what is known as a satellite collision avoidance maneuver. But not all objects in space can be controlled in this fashion.
“Our models project more than 500,000 man-made objects greater in size than 1 centimeter in orbit today — many of these small objects represent a potentially catastrophic risk to fragile-by-design spacecraft,” said Gen. William L. Shelton, the commander of Air Force Space Command, during a March 12 hearing of the Senate Armed Services Committee.
“Even a paint chip can continue to orbit the Earth for centuries,” Atkins said. Imagine a paint flake hitting the windshield of the Space Shuttle at approximately 15,000 miles per hour. It’s not too hard to predict serious damage to sensitive electronics. And in fact, that exact scenario already happened to the space shuttle.
“Even though it was only a paint flake, it went almost halfway into the shuttle’s windshield,” Atkins said.
Gen. William Shelton, commander, Air Force Space Command. (Photo: DOD)During his testimony last week, Shelton told lawmakers enhancements to the Space Surveillance Network are absolutely necessary “to close sensing gaps” and take advantage of high-performance computing.
“We have a lot of data coming in from our sensors, but right now we don’t really have the software or the computing power, the automation, to take in all of this data as ideally as we would like,” Atkins said.
One major new component coming online now is the Joint Space Operations Center Mission System, which Atkins said will provide upgraded software and better processing ability to handle the massive amount of data coming in from the sensors.
The Pentagon is also putting a lot of effort into the multibillion-dollar Space Fence, an S-band radar system officials hope to have operational by 2017.
“It’s a much more advanced radar system,” Atkins said. “It will not only be able to track smaller objects (as small as a softball in orbit 12,000 miles above Earth), but it will cover a much larger area.”
The future of the Space Surveillance Network, however, goes well beyond technology upgrades and computing power. It’s also about forging international partnerships.
Last November, Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel and Australian Defense Minister David Johnston signed an agreement to move the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency’s Space Surveillance Telescope from its original site in New Mexico to a site in Western Australia. The telescope will be relocated and operational in 2016 to monitor geosynchronous orbits over the Pacific region.
“While the purpose of these agreements is to allow us to share more advanced space flight safety products with other space-faring nations, they really serve to lay the groundwork for the next stage of effort — two-way data sharing,” said Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense Douglas Loverro, who also testified before the Senate Armed Services Committee on March 12.
“The increasingly congested space environment means that an unparalleled level of information sharing is needed to promote safe and responsible operations in space and to reduce the likelihood of mishaps, misperceptions, and mistrust,” he said. “We are currently engaged in detailed technical discussions with several nations that have space situational awareness capabilities to explore opportunities for two-way information exchange.”
