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Daylight space debris laser ranging
Satellite laser ranging allows to measure distances to satellites equipped with retroreflectors in orbits up to 36000 km. Utilizing a higher powered laser, space debris laser ranging detects diffuse reflections from defunct satellites or rocket bodies up to a distance of 3000 km. So far space debris...
Autores principales: | , , , , , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
Nature Publishing Group UK
2020
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7403592/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32753617 http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41467-020-17332-z |
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author | Steindorfer, Michael A. Kirchner, Georg Koidl, Franz Wang, Peiyuan Jilete, Beatriz Flohrer, Tim |
author_facet | Steindorfer, Michael A. Kirchner, Georg Koidl, Franz Wang, Peiyuan Jilete, Beatriz Flohrer, Tim |
author_sort | Steindorfer, Michael A. |
collection | PubMed |
description | Satellite laser ranging allows to measure distances to satellites equipped with retroreflectors in orbits up to 36000 km. Utilizing a higher powered laser, space debris laser ranging detects diffuse reflections from defunct satellites or rocket bodies up to a distance of 3000 km. So far space debris laser ranging was only possible within a few hours around twilight while it is dark at the satellite laser ranging station and space debris is illuminated by the sun. Here we present space debris laser ranging results during daylight. Space debris objects are visualized against the blue sky background and biases corrected in real-time. The results are a starting point for all space debris laser ranging stations to drastically increase their output in the near future. A network of a few stations worldwide will be able to improve orbital predictions significantly as necessary for removal missions, conjunction warnings, avoidance maneuvers or attitude determination. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-7403592 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2020 |
publisher | Nature Publishing Group UK |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-74035922020-08-13 Daylight space debris laser ranging Steindorfer, Michael A. Kirchner, Georg Koidl, Franz Wang, Peiyuan Jilete, Beatriz Flohrer, Tim Nat Commun Article Satellite laser ranging allows to measure distances to satellites equipped with retroreflectors in orbits up to 36000 km. Utilizing a higher powered laser, space debris laser ranging detects diffuse reflections from defunct satellites or rocket bodies up to a distance of 3000 km. So far space debris laser ranging was only possible within a few hours around twilight while it is dark at the satellite laser ranging station and space debris is illuminated by the sun. Here we present space debris laser ranging results during daylight. Space debris objects are visualized against the blue sky background and biases corrected in real-time. The results are a starting point for all space debris laser ranging stations to drastically increase their output in the near future. A network of a few stations worldwide will be able to improve orbital predictions significantly as necessary for removal missions, conjunction warnings, avoidance maneuvers or attitude determination. Nature Publishing Group UK 2020-08-04 /pmc/articles/PMC7403592/ /pubmed/32753617 http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41467-020-17332-z Text en © The Author(s) 2020 Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons license and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/. |
spellingShingle | Article Steindorfer, Michael A. Kirchner, Georg Koidl, Franz Wang, Peiyuan Jilete, Beatriz Flohrer, Tim Daylight space debris laser ranging |
title | Daylight space debris laser ranging |
title_full | Daylight space debris laser ranging |
title_fullStr | Daylight space debris laser ranging |
title_full_unstemmed | Daylight space debris laser ranging |
title_short | Daylight space debris laser ranging |
title_sort | daylight space debris laser ranging |
topic | Article |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7403592/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32753617 http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41467-020-17332-z |
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