Hunting streaks in space

Often ground-based and space-based optical observation systems for space objects, especially space debris, include observations of streak-like features. Such objects are of particular interest when either small or fast objects in low-Earth orbit (LEO) are observed.

This is especially the case for larger field of-views of survey systems in Space Surveillance and Tracking (SST), and for space-based sensors acquiring a statistical sampling of very small centimetre to millimetre-sized objects.

An activity with DEIMOS, UK, has built a large database of these streak features to allow easy and seamless access to the acquired data.

The activity acquired a substantial set of ground-based and space-based optical observations that contain streak features for space objects and highlighted opportunities for dedicated and "piggy-back" observations using optical systems, such as telescopes and star trackers. The acquired data was then reviewed and added to the new database structure.

An extensive set of images with real streaks and other features, such as cosmic ray events and detector defects, was acquired from the field campaign to support future design and development of ground-based and space-based sensors as well as processing algorithms. Existing sensors are configured and operated in a way to generate images with streaks. Additional data sources, such as sky cameras, were also integrated to increase the diversity of the dataset.

Next, the activity will further develop a space-based optical component. The dataset is already used in a research activity to develop new streak detection methods and as the data is already labeled with reference solutions it can be used in the future to train machine learning algorithms.

GT18-012GR closed in 2020, all documentation was received in 2021.