Space situational awareness - development of satellite tracking methods

• Main Author: Tan, Kelvin Shi Chuan
• Other Authors: Erick Lansard
• Format: Final Year Project
• Language: English
• Published: Nanyang Technological University 2024
• Subjects: Engineering; Space situational awareness; Optical satellite tracking
• Online Access: https://hdl.handle.net/10356/176893
• Institution: Nanyang Technological University

Setting satellites at Low-Earth Orbit has been of great interest in recent years as seen by the thousands of satellites at that orbit, most of which have been placed there by private companies such as SpaceX. This number is only expected to grow over the next few years. The increase in congestion at that orbit increases the risks of satellite collisions which could potentially endanger all the space assets at that orbit. As such, this paper seeks to investigate and develop satellite tracking software to increase space situational awareness at that orbit to help prevent such collisions from occurring. In particular, this paper will investigate the use of optical satellite tracking in order to determine the orbit parameters of satellites at Low-Earth Orbit in order to predict possible collisions and help to prevent them from happening.