Abstract:
This work evaluates the current state of space situational awareness (SSA) amid rapid changes in the orbital environment, including accelerating growth in large constellations, rising conjunction rates, and increasingly complex operational behaviors. It shows that legacy SSA capabilities are insufficiently accurate, timely, and complete to support effective collision avoidance and sustainable operations, particularly as unannounced maneuvers and limited data sharing introduce systemic risk. Evidence from recent data fusion campaigns demonstrates that deep collaboration between operators, governments, and commercial SSA providers can yield order-of-magnitude improvements in positional accuracy across orbital regimes, with especially strong gains in GEO and during early operations. The analysis highlights the critical role of sensor diversity and fusion—optical, radar, RF, and operator-provided data—in producing resilient and higher-fidelity orbit solutions. It further emphasizes that standards for space data exchange are necessary enablers of interoperability, trust, and scalable coordination. The findings indicate that without coordinated adoption of collaborative practices and technical standards, increasing space activity will outpace the effectiveness of current SSA systems. The study concludes that sustained space safety will depend on advancing data-sharing norms, strengthening public–private partnerships, and operationalizing fusion-based SSA architectures.
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Oltrogge, D.L., “State of SSA,” 27 Jun 2024, Satellite Innovation Group (SIG) meeting, Hereford, UK.
