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A Microsatellite "Space Guard" Force

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A Microsatellite SSC99-III-6 A Microsatellite “Space Guard” Force Matt Bille (AIAA Member), Robyn Kane, Donna Dickey, and Martin Oetting, ANSER Air Force Research Lab 1250 Academy Park Loop #119 150 Vandenberg St. Colorado Springs, CO 80910 Peterson AFB, CO 80914 719-570-4660 719-554-3690 [email protected] [email protected] Abstract The microsatellites now under development will be capable of a variety of inspection, surveillance, servicing, and propulsion services. As the military and commercial importance of space increases, a practical near-term use of this technology will be to provide the kind of services in space that the U.S. Coast Guard provides on Earth. The Coast Guard provides the U.S. coastal waters with law enforcement, search and rescue, safety inspection, and a myriad of other services. All these services are needed in the near-Earth region as well, and will become more critical as thousands of additional satellites are launched. A “Space Guard” constellation of microsatellites would use the technology being developed under the XSS-10, Mightysat, and other programs to provide similar services, beginning with low Earth orbit (LEO). Space Guard satellites could evaluate damaged satellites, enforce treaties by inspection, monitor traffic in key orbits, and report collision hazards, If needed, microsats could attach thrusters or tether packages to move or deorbit a disabled satellite. While an independent agency or international consortium could eventually operate the Guard, its initial deployment would most likely be under U.S. Space Command. This paper assesses the requirements and technology involved in the Space Guard proposal, along with possible operational structures and initial cost estimates. The Space Guard concept is a vital one. Microsatellites are the most affordable and effective way to put it into practice. Introduction Service. These two organizations were later combined into the U.S. Coast Guard (USCG). As the explosion in use of space, especially the increasingly crowded LEO belt, continues, Today, most nations with sea coasts have space planners are faced with a situation similar services. Some are military, some analogous to what the U.S. government dealt civilian, and some, like the USCG, have dual with in the early years of the Nation’s identities. Their functions vary, but most have existence. Coastal water traffic was increasing responsibilities which include the inspection of rapidly and haphazardly. This trade was ships, maintenance of navigational aids, important for the new nation’s economic well- enforcement of laws, collection of revenue, and being and a vital source of revenue. But it had search and rescue. to be regulated, required taxes and fees collected, and the safety of the vessels involved Billions of dollars' worth of satellites are now in had to be ensured. This led to the creation in orbit, providing services so vital that space is 1789 of the Revenue Marine and the Lighthouse referred to as a new economic center of gravity. A 1999 forecast by the Teal Group estimated 1 Matt Bille 13th Annual AIAA/USU Small Satellite Conference SSC99-III-6 that 1,447 additional satellites, valued at $126.8 number of satellites will create increasing billion, will be orbited from 2000-2009.1 numbers of conflicts between the vehicles – and their Earth-bound owners…space will become a There are only a few international treaties in very busy place. Who will monitor, regulate, place to regulate this traffic, and there is no and provide stability for all these hurtling enforcement, rescue, or centralized traffic- pieces of high technology?”4 deconfliction body. As space’s importance to Earth commerce will only increase, it is time to Complications will inevitably arise from the examine the options for a “Space Guard” – a ever-increasing use of space. Nonfunctioning Coast Guard in space.2 satellites, from microsats to a giant $800M Milstar launched in 1999, are in orbit without This requirement arises at the same time a power or command capability. While slots in promising technology is becoming mature. That the geosynchronous orbit (GEO) belt are technology is microsatellites. Microsats, governed by international agreement, there are offering low-cost, rapid-response spacecraft no enforcement mechanisms for this able to perform a variety of functions, can be arrangement, and no analogous governing the “Coast Guard cutters” of the new space regimes for satellites in other orbits. service. Where satellites are concentrated, so is space Background junk. In June 1999, NASA attempted to move the ISS because of a collision hazard posed by Since 1957, thousands of satellites have been Russian space debris. The object missed the launched into orbit, along with countless upper ISS – which was fortunate, since the ISS’ stages, shrouds, and other hardware. The thrusters could not be fired due to human North American Aerospace Defense Command error.5 (NORAD) Space Surveillance Network (SSN) So far, there has been one confirmed instance today maintains orbital element sets for some where a satellite was damaged by collision. 8,000 objects, and many more are too small or This was in 1996, when a spent booster stage too eccentric in their orbits to be catalogued. collided with the Cerise microsatellite. It is The debris now in orbit totals an estimated logical to assume that increased use of space 4,000 metric tons, with 175 metric tons added will bring more such instances. every year.3 For the Space Guard to have maximum With the launching of major constellations of effectiveness, the capability to track space commercial satellites, the economic importance objects will also need upgrading. The SSN, of space and its relative crowding will increase which is the world’s most capable tracking once more. Iridium has 77 satellites in orbit system today, can track only objects over 10 (not all functional), ORBCOMM 36, and centimeters (cm) in diameter, and it cannot Teledesic alone will add 288. Many of these track objects continuously. Space objects are are concentrated along particular inclination monitored each time they break “fences” “belts,” such as the 56-degree inclination, which erected by ground-based radar. There is no will become very busy as construction and way to follow an object with an eccentric path – operation of the International Space Station for example, a malfunctioning satellite firing its (ISS) proceeds. thrusters in an unpredictable pattern – to see if a hazard is being posed at any given moment. The Air University study Spacecast 2020 put A 1997 report by the General Accounting the problem this way: "The explosion in the Office concluded the U.S. needed to add the 2 Matt Bille AIAA/USU Small Satellite Conference SSC99-III-6 capability to track smaller objects – down to 1 kilograms (kg) wet mass) are also cheaper to cm, if possible – and the ability to precisely launch. A smaller satellite needs a smaller locate tracked objects in space.6 launch vehicle, and microsats can also take advantage of the secondary payload One solution is to put space surveillance opportunities that exist on large expendable capability into orbit, where the field of view launch vehicles (ELVs) and the Space Shuttle. would exceed that of any terrestrial sensor and the obscuring effects of Earth's atmosphere are Twenty years from now, the Space Guard role not present. The feasibility of this is being may be filled by crewed or uncrewed reusable demonstrated now using the Space-Based launch vehicles (RLVs), which will operate Visible (SBV) sensor on the Midcourse Space much in the way aircraft do today. The Experiment (MSX) satellite.7 Air Force Space development of RLVs, however, is an extremely Command (AFSPC) plans to develop a Space- expensive enterprise, and it is impossible to Based Electro-Optical Network (SBEON) using predict when space access via RLV will become three satellites in GEO. Another approach is to truly routine. If we want to create a Space have tracking spacecraft which can follow Guard in the near term, microsats are the only (physically or by sensors) a threatening object. affordable way to do it. The optimum approach may be a mix of Policy and Requirements ground- and space-based capabilities, with something like the current SSN (which could The cornerstone of space law is the 1967 Outer include the current ground-based sensors plus Space Treaty, which declares space is not SBEON) providing global monitoring while subject to appropriation, establishes the right of Space Guard microsats add space object free transit of space, and forbids the stationing identification (SOI) capabilities for heavily-used of weapons of mass destruction in space. Other orbits or conduct special searches to more agreements worth mentioning include the precisely locate possibly-threatening objects Liability Convention, which establishes that detected by the SSN. each nation is responsible for damage done by its space objects, and the Registration Finally, there is currently no way to perform a Convention, which requires all nations to close inspection of a satellite. Ground-based release basic information on each satellite and aircraft-based telescopes can provide some placed in orbit. data on the status of a malfunctioning object in low orbit, but these sensors are limited both in While there is no legal regime in place field of view and in resolution. specifically providing for a function like the Space Guard, there is also none prohibiting it. Why Microsatellites ? If, for example, U.S. Space Command deployed Space Guard microsatellites to support U.S.- The need for a Space Guard would be irrelevant owned satellites, no treaty problems would if there were no affordable means for deploying arise. As one space law authority, Professor the needed capabilities. Until recently, this was Joanne Gabrynowicz, points out, problems may the case. Fortunately, while space launch arise when conflicts with other nations' satellites remains expensive, technology now exists to appear.
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