Challenge Statement

In today’s highly competitive space operations environment, there is a need to improve space situational awareness to ensure a safe and efficient environment for space operations.

The Department of National Defence (DND) is looking to develop a configurable Common Operating Picture (COP) of space assets that provides the required space situational awareness for informed, expedited decision-making in support of space system operations.

Background and Context

Canada’s new Defence Policy, Strong, Secure, Engaged, characterizes space as increasingly congested, contested, and competitive. Space is congested due to the ever-increasing amount of space objects orbiting Earth; more than 20,000 objects larger than 10 centimeters are currently orbiting the Earth while it is estimated that more than 300,000 items between one and 10 centimeters are in orbit. Space is contested because of threats and hazards, such as actions by hostile entities or adverse space weather conditions that could affect space assets. The congested and contested aspects are of particular concern, since they could lead to the temporary or permanent disruption of space capabilities.

In addition, novel methods for increasing the understanding of objects in Low Earth Orbit (LEO) and Geostationary Equatorial Orbit (GEO) are being sought. The current approach for space object characterization is limited to non-resolved images and orbit determination. The world of congested/contested space will require methods of determining the shape, status, configuration, orientation and capabilities of space objects.

Space watch crews currently monitor well over a dozen separate information feeds. These feeds include space situational awareness, space weather, positioning navigation and timing (PNT), and system status information as provided by sources such as the Canadian Sapphire satellite or the U.S. Space Surveillance Network. This requires constant vigilance and running of checklists, as very few of these feeds flag the crew in a prioritized fashion if something requires their attention. They have to interpret/analyze, validate, and re-transmit the information which requires checklists and transcribing/retransmitting of information. Additionally, operational analysis staff must conduct higher-level space event risk analysis requiring a cross-correlation of much of the information that the watch crews monitor and retransmit. Their analysis supports operational decisions related to the protection and/or the operation of Canadian and allied space assets/capabilities. Therefore, there is a need to integrate all the required information feeds to produce a space COP for rigorous and effective evidence-based decision-making.

Outcomes and Considerations

The desired outcome of this research effort is to collect, collate, integrate, analyze and display all the available data feeds that are essential to establish and maintain a complete and continuous situational awareness for effective management of space assets and the provision of space effects.

From a user perspective, the space COP system should:

• Provide 3D and 2D visualization capabilities of space assets, as well as background/raw data;
• Be configurable, based on the user needs;
• Provide succinct, prioritized, time-ordered prompts of significant events (including assessed threats);
• Leverage existing commercial or military-off-the-shelf solutions wherever possible; and
• If possible, integrate Canadian space sensors (such as the Sapphire satellite while being open for future sensors) and allow for the command and control of these systems.