Maneuver Characteristics of Autonomous Non-Cooperative Spacecraft

SpaceX has launched several hundred of a planned constellation of several thousand Starlink satellites into nominal 550 km altitude circular orbits.nbsp; The Starlink spacecraft reportedly operate largely autonomously, to include maneuvering to avoid collisions with other spacecraft and debris.nbsp; Collision avoidance maneuvers are not published and may not be known even to Starlink until after they occur.nbsp; Starlink operational parameters and concept of operations (ConOps) are only partly known to 18 SPCS and CARA.nbsp; The Starlink constellation is therefore comprised of autonomous, non-cooperative spacecraft.nbsp; The native 18 SPCS OD and O/O ephemeris are unreliable means of predicting future Starlink spacecraft positions necessary for Conjunction Assessment (CA).nbsp; More concerning is that the O/O ephemeris is used for CA screening and the results are published to Starlink for use in determining avoidance maneuvers.nbsp; CARA must therefore rely entirely on Starlink spacecraft to maneuver to avoid potential collisions with CARA-protected payloads while having no knowledge of the characteristics of such maneuvers or the underlying methodology used in their planning and execution.nbsp;nbsp; Research is therefore proposed to characterize the maneuver behavior of autonomous, non-cooperative spacecraft in response to predicted CA data by analyzing historical data using machine learning and traditional analysis techniques.