Description: Millimeter sized orbital debris is effectively outside the range of current tracking capabilities which means the data being used to assess and mitigate risk is significantly lacking -- specifically for the small to medium sized debris population. The need for better methods and techniques to characterize the existing and future debris field outside the range of remote sensors was highlighted by the National Academy of Sciences in 2011: "The medium size range, approximately 5 mm to 10 cm for orbital debris, is the most difficult to characterize, with only episodic radar measurement campaigns contributing to knowledge of the environment, yet the risk (probability of collision times consequence) may be the greatest in this size range. Undoubtedly, impacts with debris in the medium size range should be occurring much more often than collisions between trackable objects..." There are an unknown but likely very large number of satellites currently in orbit that have been struck by small to medium size orbital debris, survived with no major degradation in performance, but nevertheless registered the anomalous dynamic perturbation event in their control system data stream. We are seeking funding to productize a new type of algorithm that exploits these preturbation anomalies and can be loaded in situ on new and existing satellites to characterize the small to medium debris environment. Our algorithm can be placed on satellites designed, built, and deployed specifically to characterize the debris environment, or, existing satellites that are in orbit for other purposes but contain basic information about the satellite's movement. Unlike any in situ capability now available, the algorithm proposed here can provide low cost accurate estimates of important debris environment characteristics such as impact velocity, density, and associated satellite damage.

Benefits: NASA applications that would benefit from our technology are wide ranging since orbital debris in the small to mid sized regime pose a threat to both manned and unmanned missions across the spectrum. Better characterization of the orbital debris environment would improve the data that underpins current tools, such as ORDEM, used to estimate and mitigate the risked posed by orbital debris. MADCAP would also significantly benefit since our technology would provide an avenue for characterizing debris in deep space using in situ spacecraft.

There is currently a "data deficit" in the space situational awareness business that remote sensing technologies alone cannot remedy. As a result, safe and sustainable commercial operations in space will increasingly be threatened by orbital debris. Our product represents a lower cost pathway to solving the data deficit problem: simply characterize, upload, and begin collecting data.