Affordable Persistent Surveillance of GEO

ABSTRACT: The commercial, human and military value of Earth"s orbital space is immense. To ensure operational security, obviate collisions, and preclude potential threats in the particularly valuable region of GEO space requires that we know what is there, and how the vast number of spacecraft, derelicts, and debris are moving the goal of persistent surveillance. We shall develop and analyze realistic solutions to the problem of optical surveillance of GEO space. The principals of J. T. McGraw and Associates, LLC have decades of experience in addressing the optimization of wide-field optical imaging systems, fielding unique telescopes with innovative CCD readout techniques, and development of algorithms that optimize detectivity of faint satellites. In response to SBIR Topic AF141-016,"Persistent Wide-Field Space Surveillance,"we propose to model and simulate performance of multiple candidate surveillance systems. Guided by the AFRL mission and goals, we shall use our analysis tools to determine the utility of candidate systems to identify in near real-time follow-on targets for SOR telescopes. The system designs that result from this study will be optimized to be cost-effective, replicable, include COTS components wherever possible, and will include innovative, proprietary assets in wide-field optical design, detector utilization, and image processing. BENEFIT: Enhanced detection of faint resident space objects in high Earth orbit using small, deployable optical telescope systems