Spacecraft Recognition in Co-Located Satellites Cluster Through Optical Measures

The optical orbit determination is one of the most important ways for noncooperative object tracking. One of the main problems with noncooperative object tracking is its recognition through different nights. In this study, the conditions that ensure the recognition of a geostationary satellite inside a cluster were assessed through a hard real case study. This study was developed through a three-phase approach. The first phase was the observation campaign for the images acquisition. The second phase was the image's astrometric reduction for the data collection and the third phase was the orbit determination and data analyses. To evaluate the recognition ability, the residuals between the celestial coordinates obtained from the propagated orbit, which was carried out from the fitting between first night data and the environment gravity model through a least squares approach, and the measures collected during the second night were assessed. This approach, which is totally independent from the satellite cooperation actions, can be extended to the space debris recognition during different nights.