Space

EXPERIMENTAL DEMONSTRATION OF AN ALGORITHM TO DETECT THE PRESENCE OF A PARASITIC SATELLITE
March 2003

Abstract:

Published reports of microsatellite weapons testing have led to a concern that some of these "parasitic" satellites could be deployed against US satellites to rendezvous, dock and then disrupt, degrade, disable, or destroy the system. Since the United States is the most space-dependent country on earth, it has the most to lose from this type of attack. Current detection techniques including the use of ground-based detection by optical trackers, radar sensors and satellite telemetry monitoring were found to be inadequate. Therefore, an effective detection method is required.

Both impact sensing and dynamic sensing solutions were investigated. Dynamic detection, the most effective solution, was further explored to include the creation of a detection algorithm. The algorithm consists of a dynamic detection maneuver and satellite model which is tuned in order to match the model response to the physical system response. The detection maneuver is performed regularly and matched to the model by minimizing a least-squares type cost function over the model's moment of inertia.

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