tech track papers

Categories: 2019, Space Situational Awareness

An Innovative, Near-real-time Approach to Space Situational Awareness (SSA) Data Simulation

Space Situational Awareness (SSA) is vital to maintaining our Space Superiority. We present an innovative, high fidelity, time-based simulation tool, RT-PROXOR™ (Real Time Proximity Operations and Rendering), which supports SSA by generating realistic mission scenarios including sensor frame data with corresponding truth. This unique and critical tool supports mission architecture studies, new capability development and performance analysis, and mission performance prediction. RT-PROXOR™ provides a flexible architecture for sensor and resident space object (RSO) orbital motion that simulates SSA and rendezvous scenarios. The major elements are based on the ability to accurately simulate all aspects of the RSO model, viewing geometry, imaging optics, sensor detector, and environmental conditions. These capabilities enhance the realism of mission scenario models and generated mission image data. This paper advances the work presented in our 2017 PROXOR™ paper, and presents our new RT-PROXOR™ capabilities, execution time performance results, and path forward. RT-PROXOR™ is designed as a component in a software-only or Hardware-In-The-Loop simulation. In this version, much of the code is resident in GPUs, thus greatly increasing execution speed. RT-PROXOR™ uses mission scenario information to set up the scenario to be modeled, and then each frame it is given the current pointing/clocking information and generates images using high fidelity optics and detector models. Given the pointing angles and orientation for the current frame, we calculate the changing solar and Earth illumination angles of the satellite. The synthetic satellite image is rendered at high resolution and aggregated to the focal plane resolution resulting in accurate radiometry even when the RSO is a point source. Critical aspects such as intra-frame smear and a high-fidelity detector model are included. In this paper we present an overview of RT-PROXOR™ plus simulation results of SSA missions.

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Author: Susan Hagerty
Topic: Space Situational Awareness

  • Paper Hagerty, Susan - An Innovative, Near-real-time Approach to Space Situational Awareness (SSA) Data Simulation .pdf

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  • Presentation Hagerty, Susan - An Innovative Near-real-time High Fidelity Approach To SSA Data Simulation - Hagerty.pdf

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