Prioritising Space Situational Awareness in Your Geo-Spatial Intelligence Strategy

Detecting and tracking threats, as well as analysing the risks involved are all capabilities that space situational awareness (SSA) technology needs to have to protect assets both in space and on Earth. Successfully integrating SSA technology into your Geo-Spatial Intelligence strategy requires sufficiently accurate, intelligent, and sophisticated technological solutions.

Geo-Spatial Intelligence organisations have invested heavily in recent years in developing various solutions to more advanced SSA capabilities. Their aim is to provide accurate data to Earth whilst maintaining the safety of their assets.

Assessing the current state of space situation awareness technology allows us to understand where future investments should be made, which will be a key driver of a successful Geo-Spatial Intelligence Strategy.

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SSA Case Studies

In a recent paper by Shuang Li from the College of Astronautics, Nanjing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics, he discusses recent innovations in the technology, and where Geo-Spatial Intelligence organisations have invested. Understanding where we can expect improvements to be made can provide valuable insight into where the market will develop over the coming years.

Long Distance Awareness

Increasing long-distance awareness is one area that Li looks at in the paper. The US has been one of the main drivers of developing SSA systems such as the Geosynchronous Space Situational Awareness Programme (GSSAP). With high accuracy, the GSSAP can identify the vital features of objects, and successfully differentiate various targets.

Along with the GSSAP, the US have also deployed their Space-Based Surveillance Programme (SBSS), which improves on the complexities of the data that is collected, as well as the tracking capabilities that it provides.

The US has also seen success by integrating different space programmes that have different use cases to improve long-distance awareness. Their Space-Based Infrared System (SBIRS), which deploys four satellites and infrared payloads has been combined with The Space Tracking and Surveillance System (STSS).

The STSS has access to 24 further satellites and is more successful at motion detection in complex scenarios. The two programmes merge to give the SBIRS expanded coverage and greater capabilities. Clearly, a strategy of combining programmes to provide solutions until a singular option becomes viable has been successful.

Developing Early Warning Capabilities Through Improved Object Identification

One of the key solutions that space situational awareness provides is identifying potential threats, both on the ground and in space. The early warning capabilities of the technology has been heavily invested in by various space programmes, with object identification needing to be accurate and consistent. Russia for example, have developed their Tree Canopy System.

The programme has a detection range of up to 40000km and uses laser radars, radiofrequency, and visible-light telescopes to provide uninterrupted measurements of space debris to identify potential threats sooner.

A large part of early warning capabilities is object identification, and Geo-Spatial Intelligence organisations should be investing in this technology, according to Li. Machine vision and Artificial Neural Networks (ANN) have been increasingly explored as alternatives to laser radars, in an effort to innovate object identification algorithms.

Certain parameter estimation technologies in target identification need further research, as Li says in his paper. For example, accurate intention awareness is vital for improving early warning data and requires a behavioural understanding of objects. This can only be done through the extended monitoring of those objects. Whilst there has been good research and associated systems developed for object identification, intention recognition needs improvement.

The sophistication of AI, and Intelligent Algorithms

As is true with many sectors, the implementation of more intelligent and sophisticated algorithms and AI holds the key to improved target recognition. In its current state, the algorithms can only process and monitor small samples of data. Analysis of the data is not fast enough, and most of the current technology cannot provide real-time insights.

Equally, there should be an investment in the adaptability of target recognition models to handle the diverse applications of the data that they need to interpret. With many providers developing systems as we speak, this is an area that we can expect to improve greatly over the next several years.

As current technology stands, implementing AI applications onboard spacecraft have been extremely difficult, due to the high processing and computational power that sufficient object identification and classification requires.

There have been consistent advancements over the past several years, however. AI-oriented computing hardware such as Graphics Processing Units (GPU) has been developed, which could provide a suitably lightweight, durable, and adequately powerful solution to the problem.

The Future of Space Situational Awareness

The global space situational awareness market is expected to reach 1.73 billion USD by 2028 according to Fortune Business Insights. With so much investment, the SSA technologies used need to make advancements in providing more sophisticated data across larger areas. As demand for geospatial awareness insights grows, the technologies need to advance to keep up. AI systems such as BlackSky's Spectra AI SaaS platform, coupled with multiagent programmes are helping to overcome the technological limitations whilst advancing space situational awareness.

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