Developing the detectability, identifiability, and trackability analysis for the space sustainability rating

Three of the core activities in maintaining Space Situational Awareness (SSA) efforts are the Detection, Identification, and Tracking of Anthropogenic Space Objects (ASOs). For much of the space age, the onus for improving global SSA has fallen primarily on the ground-based satellite surveillance and tracking community, leading to more technically advanced and powerful sensing systems. With the focus on improving sensor design for SSA purposes, designers of surveillance and tracking systems have been able to push the envelope of observing increasingly smaller ASOs. Meanwhile, ventures in the use of nanosatellite and picosatellite architectures for commercial business models have become increasingly popular due to their lower material and launch costs. The proliferation of these small ASOs has made it easier than ever to add to the orbital population while also stretching thin the increasingly taxed ground-based sensing systems on which the world depends for SSA.

Name thesis:degree_name

Master

Department dc:contributor.department

Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Mechanical Engineering

Grantor dc:publisher

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Year dc:date.issued

2021

Author dc:creator

• Steindl, Riley M.

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Danielle R. Wood.

• Mechanical Engineering.

Statement dc:rights

• MIT theses may be protected by copyright. Please reuse MIT thesis content according to the MIT Libraries Permissions Policy, which is available through the URL provided.

Licence dc:rights.uri

• http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/7582

Language dc:language.iso

eng

Handle dc:identifier.uri

https://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/130865

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:dspace.mit.edu:1721.1/130865