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AAS 12-011SATELLITE CONJUNCTION ASSESSMENTAND COLLISION AVOIDANCE SUPPORTFROM AN OPERATIONAL PERSPECTIVERobert A. Massey *Under Space Situational Awareness (SSA) sharing provisions of the new U.S. NationalSpace Policy, commercial and international Guidance, Navigation, and Controlprofessionals and satellite owner/operators concerned about orbital safety now have expandedaccess to systems, processes, and information used by the United States StrategicCommand (USSTRATCOM) Joint Space Operations Center (JSpOC) for high-accuracysatellite Conjunction Assessment (CA) and collision avoidance support. Recentcontributions to the orbital debris population and historical Satellite Catalog growth arereviewed with commentary on catalog-growth projections. A brief background of operationaldebris avoidance strategy for ISS/Shuttle and its progression to include all currentactive payloads is presented. Key systems, software applications and underlying algorithmsused by the JSpOC for high-accuracy satellite catalog maintenance, CA, and collisionavoidance support are reviewed. The simplified 2-D formulation and supportingkey assumptions for computed probability of collision are illustrated and explained. Thegeneral CA process used by JSpOC Orbit Safety Analysts (OSAs) for consistent orbitdetermination and improved covariances leading to actionable relative miss predictionsand computed collision probabilities is described. A close-conjunction asset versus debriscase study example is presented. [View Full Paper]* Sr. Space Analyst and former JSpOC 1st Space Control Squadron Orbital Safety Analyst; Colorado Springs,Colorado, U.S.A.; 719-360-3549 mobile, E-mail: robert_massey@zoho.com.3