Open Call for Innovative Defense-Related Dual-Purpose Technologies/Solutions with a Clear Air Force Stakeholder Need

Currently, the Space Surveillance Network (SSN) and select space-based Space Situation Awareness (SSA) assets are the only sources validated and routinely calibrated for use in maintaining the high accuracy space catalog and in the performance of associated mission areas. The process used for sensor calibration, in its current instantiation, is operator-intensive, error prone and not timely. Additionally, this service is not easily shared across stakeholders thus limiting use of sensor data from the DoD, Intelligence Community (IC), civil agencies, and commercial entities. Commercial sensing assets are currently and will begin to contribute more and more to the Air Force SSA mission, in order to keep pace with the increased demand the sensor calibration process must re-evaluated and optimized. This effort aims to research and implement workflow automation services, autoregressive machine learning models, refined statistical models based on known physical properties and pipelines to support publishing of data products to the wider community of stakeholders. Automation, continual monitoring, and rapid data product generation will have immediate and long lasting positive impacts in the areas of satellite custody maintenance, conjunction assessment, proximity operations, early indication and warning of events, threat detection and assessment as well as sensor anomaly identification and performance monitoring.