GBOTS: Ground-Based Optical Tracking in Stereo

This Phase II SBIR effort supports the development, maturation, and transition of Numerica's Ground-Based Optical Tracking in Stereo (GBOTS) technology that exploits stereoscopic viewing conditions in order to provide more timely and actionable information to the warfighter. The specific objectives are the following: (i) mature and transition the rapid stereo initial orbit determination component of GBOTS to the 18th Space Control Squadron to improve uncorrelated track and attention list processing; (ii) mature the photometric change detection component of GBOTS to enable the fusion of multi-sensor stereo visual magnitude information to increase detection sensitivity and reduce false alarms; (iii) extend the Numerica Telescope Network (NTN) third-party on-demand tasking service to support stereo tracking and multi-spectral data collection requests; (iv) conduct experiments using the GBOTS software and the NTN to demonstrate use cases in precision ephemeris generation and to quantify the benefit of stereo viewing; (v) build and deliver a database of multi-spectral stereo photometric observations using NTN assets to support R&D in Government-sponsored space object identification for satellites in and near geosynchronous Earth orbit; and (vi) perform a field trial of the third-party on-demand stereo tracking and multi-spectral data collection services with Government authorized users.