Development of the Slovak 70-cm Optical Passive System Dedicated to Space Debris Tracking on LEO to GEO orbits

The Faculty of Mathematics, Physics and Informatics of Comenius University in Bratislava, Slovakia (FMPI) has been developing its 70 cm Newtonian design telescope (AGO70) since 2016 within the framework of the ESA Plan for Cooperating States (PECS) programme for Slovakia. The ongoing development is performed for space debris tracking situated from Low Earth Orbit (LEO) to Geosynchronous Earth Orbit (GEO) and is focused on the improvement of hardware, system control software, image processing software and the observation program. The AGO70 has been installed at the FMPI’s Astronomical and Geophysical Observatory in Modra, Slovakia (AGO) in Fall 2016. It was a standard astronomical system capable to perform measurements of e.g. stellar objects, near Earth asteroids, comets, etc. To achieve that the system could be effectively used for space debris research and space surveillance tracking (SST), there were several predefined objectives to be accomplished. First, the hardware, e.g., telescope mount, needed to be evaluated quality-wise and improved. Secondly, it was imperative to adapt the low-level telescope control for the needs of space debris tracking. Thirdly, the image processing software has been developed in a modular way and validated. The observation planning has been formulated according to the AGO70 system’s hardware limitations with focus on LEO, GTO, GNSS and GEO like orbits. To verify the system’s capabilities, an observation campaign was performed. In our work we present the AGO70 systems description and the requirements defined for the hardware, software and observation program to achieve the desired capabilities. We compare the system’s performance before and after the improvements have been and will be implemented. Discussed are the space debris observation programs of the AGO70 system with focus on system’s output data description, their quality and formats.