I presented Tuesday at the Center for Orbital Debris Education and Research on “CubeSat Network for Prediction and Tracking of Orbital Debris.” The key points:

1. Conceptual Stage of Development
2. LIDAR ~700W and CubeSat ~200 W
3. Assuming UV laser, 355 nm, resolution of 1 mm would require a 2 m telescope diameter for a range of 5 km

Presentation is attached here: simpson_v2

Several topics that are of interest specifically to my presentation:

• Research that suggests that the satellite operators that do not follow good practices will be the primary source of new collisions in the future. Roger Thompson, The Aerospace Corporation, spoke to this on my panel.
• Space is about to get a lot more crowded. To put it in context their have been 56 launches this year. SpaceX filed for 4400 satellites with the FCC Wednesday.
• There is a strong need for knowledge of conjunctions and good covariance analysis. I.E. there seems to be the need for secondary analysis for conjunction warnings from JSpOC. On my panel Don Greiman, Schafer Commercial Space Situational Awareness Team, spoke to this from the commercial side and Ryan Shepperd as analysis in-house for Iridium.

Talk about a huge learning experience. I hope to take what I’ve learned back to The University of Alabama and disseminate this knowledge among our academic community. I also plan to stay in touch with the contacts I’ve made to help expand my horizons.