22 September 2023
Keynote
Elizabeth Pearce, Director Space Technology, Office of the CTO, Australian Space Agency
Agency Priorities
-National Space Policy. We want to then take that and further engage internationally. We want to promote the value and benefits of space.
-We have our Lunar Rover program in Artemis. It may not seem like much here but in Australia we are incredibly proud.
SSA in Australia
-I use SSA on purpose rather than SDA. We’re civil focused but we’ve realized our capability is a whole of government process.
-There is an opportunity for Australian industry to grow. We want to have a competitive advantage in the global market. We’re behind in a lot of ways and we’re finding our niches. This includes space weather, object sensing, responsible mission design, data fusion and analytics… We can see a lot with our capabilities.
SACT
-Shout out Barb Golf. She has brought Australia along on the journey. We’ve started off all in one room. There are three exercises per year and it’s a chance to test our sensor capabilities and realize all the gaps we have in Australia.
STM
-We’re looking at it as a whole of government approach. How do we communicate the risks to those who don’t know? What’s our response capability? We need to understand space and have SSA and tracking and forecasting.
-As we move forward, there isn’t a lot in space right now that’s Australian owned and operated but we are going to.
[End]
SSA Policy Forum | Moving From Industry Best Practices to STM Rules
Moderator- Brian Weeden, Director of Program Planning, Secure World Foundation Panelists
Jerome Barbier, Head of Outer Space, Digital, and Economic Issues, Paris Peace Forum
Mariel Borowitz, Associate Professor, Sam Nunn School of International Affairs, Georgia Institute of Technology
David Goldstein, Principal Engineer, SpaceX
Daniel Oltrogge, Founder and Administrator, Space Safety Coalition
Challenges in Operating in LEO
Oltrogge:
-Be transparent in what you’re doing. Being open in coordination and respectful about space safety. We have to figure out ways to operate safely despite noncooperative actors in space.
-We’re facing risks that we have no control over but we have to figure out ways to overcome.
Rules Research
Borowitz:
-There’s a lot to look at. I think there’s always going to be pros and cons to each rule. At some point we need to do this research and understand the pros and cons but at the end of the day we just need to decide and move forward. At some point we’ll have to make a call.
-There’s also a lot of data missing. I think there’s a lot of groundwork we can learn near term, concrete steps that we can do just to get more information and get the lines of communication open.
International Cooperation
Barbier:
-It’s important to leave room for discussion from different actors. I’m not sure you’ll want technical conditions.
STM vs Space Traffic Coordination
Borowitz:
-There’s a tie between the two. Everything we’re doing today is the space traffic coordination effort. And then some day, it’ll get to STM.
[End]
Space Domain Awareness | Lessons Learned on Mega-Constellation Deployments and Impact
Christian Ramons, 18th Space Defense Squadron/Omitron Inc.
Mission Evolution
-Payloads have grown drastically.
-When mega constellations started launching it forces us to reevaluate.
SDA Mission Focus
-18th is responsible for managing the catalog, launch tracing, object justification, object custody… that is all sent over to the 19th
Pre-Launch Conjunction Assessment
-Our processes were predicated on a few payloads per launch.
-Challenges from mega constellations, record-breaking number of launches= increase screenings, increase close approaches, risk of time between launch and cataloging
Solutions- single trajectory with over-estimated hard-body radius to represent subset of satellites= decreased screening time
Initial Object Separation
-Two types of models, active or passive deployment models.
-Goal- achieve custody of newly launched objects.
-Between deployment and complete custody, distinct observations are required.
-We work to ensure spaceflight safety within 48 hours.
-Integration of O/O-provided ephemeris reduced workload by 75%. It can also be used to update observations.
Maintenance Phase
-Goal is to maintain accurate and timely custody of spacecraft during orbit raising, operational orbit, and orbit lowering
-Challenge: modeling non-constant electric propulsions
-Solutions: implementation of adaptive thrust uncertainty (ATU). This determines when thrust should be applied to specific segments of observation period.
Conjunction Assessment
-Challenges: volume of data produced by intra-constellation screenings. Exponential growth in conjunction data messages as active satellites increase.
-Solutions: providing data to SpaceX to execute intra-constellation screenings. CA screening optimization to reduce processing time.
Best Practices
-Mega-Constellation operators have led the community in adoption and endorsement of key best practices. Communicate early and often. Pre-launch coordination with USSC, NASA, and data providers. Share contact information and know your neighbors.
[End]
Space Domain Awareness | Evaluation of Maneuver Detection within an Autonomous Heterogeneous Sensor Network
Jonathan Kadan, SSC/SZGA
Autonomous Event Based Sensor Tasking
-Satellites are maneuvering and it’s going to get larger over time. We need to make sure we’re detecting and tracking all this movement.
-Created a test case scenario, just to look at a few things, I looked at maneuver detection and autonomous event-based sensor tasking. I wanted to see the proper process for detection. Then you have to make sure you’re tasking your sensor.
-Tested five geo satellites, one sensor…I injected one sensor maneuver… I used a special dynamics model…
-After the common filter was tuned, I injected the maneuver… but I didn’t change my tasking. I modified my reward function. It just tells the decision makers in this case the sensor, what it should look at next.
-There were a lot of observations at the time the objects had maneuvered.
[End]
Space RCO and Dynamic Space Operations
Dr. Kelly Hammett, Director and Program Executive Officer, Space RCO
Who We Are
-We are one of three AQ organizations for USSF. A small independent unit in the USSF AQ ecosystem based in NM. By law we are not allowed to be collocated with SSC. We are supposed to be moving very quickly for USSF.
-SDA is out there. They’re doing p-LEO stuff. SSC does a lot of long, exquisite, milsatcom types of things. We’re doing primarily new things as the threat evolves and are trying to keep pace.
-Charged with rapidly delivering first of their kind operational space capabilities to stay ahead of threats.
-We’re still evolving. We don’t have to do pre-milestone A to get started. We move when the Secretary says go.
-Threat evolution largely drives Space RCO’s mission. Recent and rapid evolution of space threats are a defining element of the Third Space Age.
Dynamic Space Operations
-Senior military space leaders are calling for a pivot in space operations capabilities. Be able to deny first mover advantage and responsibility hold threat assets at risk to protect forces from space enabled attack.
-We’re trying to push this out, get going, get the industry moving with it.
Space Protection Payloads
-Space RCO launched three rideshare payloads in Jan 2023 on USSF-67.
-We’re stepping out of the shadows, showing we’re a real thing and we’re delivering.
-Two rounds of payload testing completed in July. Production versions of those units are being built now with first deliveries to USSF satellite programs this fall and next spring.
Satellites Communications Augmentation Resource (SCAR)
-AQ phased array antennas to significantly increase Satellite Control Network.
-First elements, each SCAR system is designed to make contacts with a dozen satellites simultaneously.
-We just had a sub-scale technology demo completed in August 2023. Development and delivery in 2025.
Resilient Command and Control (R2C2)
-Combined Space RCO/SSC program. Stood up Feb 2023 to build off experience and products of legacy programs from both offices. Space RCO leads R2C2 with staff and funding from both orgs.
-We’re going to try to deliver a common user experience and we’ll be able to synchronize activities.
-We need to know where things are, what they do, and be able to defend and protect….
Critical Partnerships for Rapid Fielding
-Delivering and fielding a space capability to USSF goes far beyond Space RCO. Coordination has been extensive and continues. Must ensure both front end and back end processes support Space RCO timelines for “first of” capabilities.
Preferred Location Announcement
-Space RCO at Kirtland AFB. We’re going to tailor processes and move fast.
Looking Forward
-Space RCO is talking with companies with proven track records and mature technologies for dynamic space operations.
-We’re partnering with AFRL to do a Hyperspace Challenge and we’re asking nontraditional and international partners to participate and give us some awareness and how they can help. We need awareness, autonomy, maneuverability, reservicing…
-We had about 80 companies apply for the program. We’re going to be down selecting the first week of November. Half of them are international. It’s great, we never would’ve considered that before.
[End]
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