Protect the safety of the universe!Debri Observation Technology | New Switch by Nikkan Kogyo Shimbun

[Use optical telescope]

Our life, such as weather forecasts, car navigation systems, and satellite broadcasting, is now inseparable from space.The use of the universe will expand in the future.At the same time, there are issues we need to solve.It is a space debris.

Space debris is a launched rocket, artificial satellite, and their fragments since humanity began in space development.Many of them remain in orbit and fly at high speed, so if they collide with artificial satellites, etc., even small debris will not only cause enormous damage, but also generate a large amount of new space debris.We have the danger of giving it.However, if you can know the location of the debris that collides with an artificial satellite, it will be possible to avoid collisions.

More than 10 centimeters in low orbitals (less than 2000 km at altitude) in serious debris congestion are mainly grasped by US radar monitoring networks.The Space Aerospace Research and Development Organization (JAXA) uses optical telescopes to conduct research and development of a smaller orbit of a small orbit, which has been difficult to grasp the situation, which has been difficult to grasp the situation.

[Observation image processing]

As shown in the figure, as shown in the figure, many images that detect a very dark (small) cosmic debris that cannot be recognized by one image by assuming a large number of observed images in the space debris.It is a processing technology.Since it is necessary to carry out a large amount of image processing assuming the direction of all kinds of movement of space debris, it has been a huge amount of time, but it has been a huge amount of time, but dedicated FPGA boards (a type of integrated circuit) and GPU (image processing).This weakness has been overcome by developing an algorithm for).

These technologies can detect a cosmic debris of 10 centimeters or less of 10 centimeters or less in low orbitals by analyzing observatory images obtained from small telescopes of about 20 cm in diameter, even without large -scale equipment. Became.

In order to confirm the effectiveness of these observation techniques, JAXA is building a remote observation facility in Australia and conducts observation and operation every day.In the future, we plan to develop technology to understand and track the trajectory of the discovered space debris.

[Cooperation with US surveillance network]

Optical telescope observation of space debris has a weak point that the weather is more susceptible to the weather than the radar, but it has the advantage that the positioning of the space debris is high and the preparation of the observation equipment is not expensive.

In the future, we want to grasp the space debris in orbit by cooperating with the US radar monitoring network and aims to ensure space activities.

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Nikkan Kogyo Shimbun August 31, 2021