Design concepts for an open-source orbit domain information system for precision space domain awareness

In 2021, there were about 3,500 operational satellites on orbit. Over the next five years, this number will increase by an order of magnitude as mega-constellations, comprising thousands of individual satellites, are launched. This will inevitably increase the frequency of on-orbit collisions and breakup events (~5 such events annually on average since 2010) that generate uncontrollable fragments that pose a catastrophic risk to all orbital objects.

Current space surveillance systems based on cold-war era technology and are no longer fit for purpose (poor accuracy, high latency, designed for military applications). There is an urgent need for a free and open-source modern information system with the ability to handle (i.e., estimate and/or predict) the trajectories of tens of thousands of objects in real-time to provide space domain awareness to space operators across the defence, security, civil, commercial, and public sectors. The UCL Geomatics department is an ideal place to work on this problem. The work will leverage and further the capabilities of the UCL Orbit Dynamics Library which features state-of-the-art algorithms for satellite navigation developed at UCL.

The outcome of the project will be a design concept for a modern information system that is built for everyone. This process would involve user research, development, and iterative design to create a system that is established on the principles of free and open-source software movement and democratization of data.