Space Surveillance Telescope is Declared Operational
The Australian Ministry of Defense, in collaboration with the United States Space Force (USSF), have achieved Initial Operational Capability of the Space Surveillance Telescope to provide enhanced space domain awareness.
“In an increasingly contested and congested space environment, The Space Surveillance Telescope will provide enhanced awareness of the space domain and contribute to greater Alliance cooperation.”
Air-Vice Marshal (AVM) Cath Roberts.
As announced at the 2012 Australia-United States Ministerial Consultations (AUSMIN), the Space Surveillance Telescope was relocated to Australia from the US to strengthen the US Space Surveillance Network’s ability to track space assets and debris and provide warnings of possible collisions between space objects.
In March 2020, the telescope captured its first images of objects in space from its new location. Since 2020, the telescope has undergone a rigorous testing and evaluation program to prove it is ready for ongoing operations.
Space Surveillance Telescope Tracks Faint Objects in Deep Space
With testing complete, the telescope will allow greater space domain awareness by providing ground-based, broad-area search, detection and tracking of faint objects in deep space.
Commander Defense Space Command, Air-Vice Marshal (AVM) Cath Roberts said this milestone was an important step for the Alliance and the future of space capability in Australia. “In an increasingly contested and congested space environment, The Space Surveillance Telescope will provide enhanced awareness of the space domain and contribute to greater Alliance cooperation,” AVM Cath Roberts said.
”The bespoke facilities and supporting infrastructure are as much of a milestone as the telescope itself and represent a significant achievement by Defense and Australian industry”.
According to a 2021 news release from MIT, The Space Surveillance Telescope is a unique telescope with a 3.6-meter (≈12 foot) aperture and f/1 optics. An array of 12 charge-coupled-device (CCD) sensors fill the mosaic focal surface. Each CCD has eight million pixels. The optics are fast, forming a curved real image with a radius of 5.44 meters. Each of the CCDs was thinned down and mounted to a curved mandrel aligned to match the radius of the real image. This sensor and mirror combination enables a 2 × 3 degree field of view. Additionally, the control and data processing system, designed and built by the Laboratory, receives and processes images in real time, producing precise measurements of satellite positions. This system sifts through more than a terabyte of data during a night of observing. In addition, the SST is capable of a high search rate that yields timely information.
(Source: Australia Ministry of Defense news release. Images provided)