Orbital Navigation Using Resident Space Object Observations

Orbital Navigation Using Resident Space Object Observations

With the population of Resident Space Objects (RSOs) in low earth orbit growing steadily year by year, there is an increasing challenge to track and map this population. While dedicated space and ground-based RSO detectors have done well, there has been an increasing amount of space-based detectors that assist in maintaining the RSO catalog. With continual RSO knowledge improvements, it may be possible to one day use RSO observations as a means of space-based navigation. This paper explores how this RSO information could one day be used in the attitude and orbit determination of the satellite. By leveraging the measurement parallax of nearby RSOs on the star tracker detector, the star tracker can be used to provide both orbit and attitude information to the navigation filter on-board the spacecraft, providing a useful backup to a standard GPS receiver. This paper presents preliminary work on a combined orbit / attitude Kalman filter that includes RSO observations from standard star trackers.