Local Area Space Situational Awareness (SSA) Optical Sensor System for Satellites

Recent advances in SWIR fiber lasers, very high sensitivity, high bandwidth detector mosaics, high speed readouts to support mosaic detector arrays, and innovative scanning techniques for rapid search of large volumes can be combined to produce a local area space situation awareness sensor suite that can detect and identify space objects that are approaching US space assets. This concept employs two sensor installations on opposite faces of a satellite that can provide 4 Pi steradians of space observed out to a minimum of 10 km. A pair of sensors on each installation create a 270 degree fan that is 5 degrees wide. Mounting on a turning azimuth table rotates this fan thru 360 degrees and thus creates an over 2 Pi steradian search volume. The sensor installation searches this volume every two seconds. Resolution on an approaching target is 20 cm at the 10 km range. This concept has been called GEMINI. This Phase 1 effort will build a performance model for the GEMINI concept, will evaluate specific designs, and develop a manufacturing and test program plan which can lead to a high TRL level for this class of application.