Space Security Index

Space Security 2011
50
ve satellites in the SAR-Lupe radar imaging constellation. German ocials indicated that
the GSSAC would rely heavily on U.S. SSA data until the new European program could get
under way, but that data from the GSSAC would be made available to international bodies. 55
e ESA maintains information in its own Database and Information System Characterising
Objects in Space (DISCOS), which also takes inputs from the U.S. public catalog,
Germany’s Tracking and Imaging Radar (TIRA) system at the Research Establishment for
Applied Science near Bonn, and ESA’s Space Debris Telescope in Tenerife, Spain. e TIRA
system — which can detect debris and determine orbit information for objects as small as
2 cm at 1,000 km — has a 34-meter dish antenna operating in L-band for debris detection
and tracking. 56 DISCOS contains information on launch details, orbit histories, physical
properties, and mission descriptions for about 33,500 objects tracked since Sputnik-1,
including approximately 7.4 million records in total. 57 e Space Debris Telescope, a 1-m
Zeiss optical telescope, focuses on observations in GEO and can detect objects as small as
approximately 15 cm. 58 According to ESA, during GEO observation campaigns with the
Space Debris Telescope, approximately 75 per cent of detections are objects not contained
in the U.S. space surveillance catalog. 59 Other optical sensors in Europe, including three
Passive Imaging Metric Sensor Telescopes operated by the U.K. Ministry of Defence, the
Zimmerwald 1-m telescope at the Astronomical Institute of the University of Berne in
Switzerland, and the French SPOC system and ROSACE telescope, contribute to debris
surveillance in GEO. 60 In 2010, ESA announced plans for a satellite tracking campaign using
existing European capabilities as the basis for a European SSA system, as described below.
Table 2.2: Space surveillance capabilities 61
Country Optical
Sensors
Radar
Sensors
Orbital
Sensors
Global
Coverage
Centralized
Tasking
Catalog Public Data
Amateur observers ■ □ □ □ ■
Bolivia* ■
Canada ■ [□]
China ■ ■
European Union ■ ■ [□] [□]
France ■ ■
Georgia* ■
Germany ■
Great Britain ■ ■
Japan ■ ■
India ■
Norway ■
Russia ■ ■ ■ □
South Africa ■
Spain* ■
Switzerland ■
Tajikistan* ■
Ukraine ■
United States ■ ■ [□] □ ■ ■ □
Uzbekistan*
■ = Full capability
□ = Some capability
[□] = Under development
■
* Part of the International Scientific Optical Network (ISON)