ESA UNCLASSIFIED - Releasable to the Public

Quirin Funke

Orbit Determination and Conversion Processes at the Space Debris Office

Quirin Funke | 14/07/2016 | Slide 2 ESA UNCLASSIFIED - Releasable to the Public

Outline

1. Where we come from 2. Orbit determination process 3. Ephemeris format conversion 4. CPF validation 5. Tracking campaigns 6. SCOOP

Quirin Funke | 14/07/2016 | Slide 3 ESA UNCLASSIFIED - Releasable to the Public

Where we come from

• Development & maintenance of debris environment and risk analysis tools MASTER-2009, DRAMA, see https://sdup.esoc.esa.int

• Acquisition & processing of measurement data • Operational & contingency support to ESA

and 3rd party missions (mainly LEOP, collision avoidance & re-entry)

• Coordination of ESA debris research • Contribution to ECSS, CCSDS and ISO

standards • Engineering Support (SSA, Clean Space) • Promotion of ESA-internal & public awareness

on space debris issues

The Space Debris Office is in charge of development and maintenance of an infrastructure in support of ESA’s commitment on space debris mitigation and risk reduction

Quirin Funke | 14/07/2016 | Slide 4 ESA UNCLASSIFIED - Releasable to the Public

Orbit determination process

internal ephemeris format

Orbit determination

Custom formats of several radar & optical sensors

CCSDS Tracking Data Messages CRDs

existing SCOOP project

Quirin Funke | 14/07/2016 | Slide 5 ESA UNCLASSIFIED - Releasable to the Public

Ephemeris format conversions

Converter

internal ephemeris format

CPF, OEM, …

Operational ESA orbit

Converter

JSpOC¹ (TLE, Conjunction Data

Message)

Propagator

CCSDS Orbit Ephemeris Message

Converter

1) Joint Space Operations Center (US military)

Quirin Funke | 14/07/2016 | Slide 6 ESA UNCLASSIFIED - Releasable to the Public

CPF conversion accuracy validation

Our CPF for Cryosat-2 based on operational orbit

Quirin Funke | 14/07/2016 | Slide 7 ESA UNCLASSIFIED - Releasable to the Public

CPF conversion accuracy validation

HTS CPF

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CPF conversion accuracy validation

CDDIS CPF

Quirin Funke | 14/07/2016 | Slide 9 ESA UNCLASSIFIED - Releasable to the Public

Tracking campaigns close to re-entry

Joining SLR debris tracking campaigns with IADC (Inter-Agency Space Debris Coordination Committee) re-entry campaigns gives some benefits: • World-wide participation by IADC member agencies • TIRA Radar measurements tasked by ESA • Fairly good orbit available for an object close to re-entry • Improvement of re-entry prediction accuracy expected Laser ranging in first campaign (CZ-2C upper stage in June) not successful due to bad weather at Wettzell and Graz Next campaign for AVUM (Vega upper stage) starting end of October.

Quirin Funke | 14/07/2016 | Slide 10 ESA UNCLASSIFIED - Releasable to the Public

What is SCOOP?

• Web-based platform prototype hosted by ESA • Support coordination of collaborative observation campaigns • Combine measurements from different sensor types • Targeted at contingency support, re-entry or validation campaigns • Not for routine tracking • Provide backend services for

• orbit determination • pass prediction • data correlation

• Existing processes will be integrated in backend • Free to use

Quirin Funke | 14/07/2016 | Slide 11 ESA UNCLASSIFIED - Releasable to the Public

SCOOP usage scenario

SCOOP frontend SCOOP

backend & database

TDM

insert TLE run PP

OEM, CPF, textual PP

User 1

Initiate campaign

CPF Consolidated prediction format

CRD Consolidated laser ranging data format

OD Orbit determination

OEM Orbit ephemeris message

PP Pass prediction

TDM Tracking data message

TLE Two-line element set

Run PP with TLE

User 2

User 3

textual PP, OEM

CPF, OEM

CRD, TDM insert TDM run OD, PP insert CRD run OD, PP

Quirin Funke | 14/07/2016 | Slide 12 ESA UNCLASSIFIED - Releasable to the Public

Summary

• Translation from various formats to CPF possible • Orbit determination with measurements from different sensors possible • Made available via SCOOP web-based platform • Interesting for special observation campaigns like contingencies, re-

entries, and validation campaigns • End-to-end validation of orbit determination and format conversion

processes still to be done • SCOOP workshop in Jan./Feb. 2017

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Thank you!