Darcy Bibb Oceanit Mentor: Tony Bartnicki Advisor: Curt Leonard Home Institution: Maui Community College Integration of a Small Telescope System for Space.

Darcy Bibb

OceanitMentor: Tony BartnickiAdvisor: Curt Leonard

Home Institution: Maui Community College

Integration of a Small Telescope System for Space Situational Awareness

Overview

• Oceanit’s HANDS• Satellites

– What’s out there?

– Why track them?

• System integration– Component assembly and configuration

• System modeling and calibration– Polar alignment

– Mount model

• Autonomous tracking• System’s future

HANDS(High Accuracy Network Determination System)

• Global network of low-cost, ground-based telescope systems• Capable of autonomously tracking satellites• Can provide accurate position data (metrics) of satellites• All systems are remotely accessible

Why track satellites?

With over 8,000 man-made objects in orbit around Earth, the need to track these objects is apparent

An optical system can:

• Track own country’s assets in space• Keep track of where other countries’ satellites are situated• Determine possible collisions• Determine when and where objects will re-enter Earth’s atmosphere• Detect new objects in space

System Integration

• Assembly of components into three basic assemblies:– Computer system– Weather sensors– Optical assembly

• Combined assemblies make up overall complete telescope system

Computer System

• Computer system integration– Install and wire individual components into portable server rack– Install and configure software on each server

Front Back

Weather Sensors• Weather system integration

– Mount and wire all weather sensors on a portable weather pole

Optical Assembly• Optical assembly integration

– Install robotic telescope mount onto portable pier– Mount and balance optical tube assembly onto telescope mount– Mount and wire onto back of optical tube assembly:

• CCD Camera• Focuser• Filter wheel

Complete System

System Modeling

• Polar alignment– Polar alignment aligns the rotational axis of the telescope mount

parallel to the rotational axis of the Earth– Ensures accuracy of telescope movement and pointing

• TPoint model– Uses mapped stars for additional calculations and corrections to

improve mount alignment and external errors

Further Adjustments

• Bring images into focus– Adjustments to telescope primary mirror – broad adjustments– Mechanical focuser between telescope and camera – fine

adjustments

Optical system out of focus

Faint stars still appear out of focus

Completely focused image

Autonomous Tracking

• Software on Linux server configured for scheduled tasking and to provide scripts to software on the Windows server

• Software on Windows server executed scripts for telescope movement, object tracking, and image capture

• System successfully started up autonomously and began tracking satellites and saving images

Ballistic tracking Sidereal tracking

Future of the System

• With system capable of autonomous operation:– System will be moved into a test dome and set up– Verify system will operate and run autonomously– Complete system will run continuously for 21 days to test stability and operation

• Upon successful completion of stability testing:– System will be disassembled and packaged– Deployed to final destination, and reassembled and set up on site– System will run autonomously and return data to control center

Acknowledgements• Oceanit

– Tony Bartnicki

– Curt Leonard

– Everyone at Oceanit, Maui

• Center for Adaptive Optics– Scott Seagroves

– Lynne Raschke

– Hilary O’Bryan

• Akamai Workforce Initiative– Lisa Hunter

– Lani LeBron

The Akamai Internship Program is funded by the Center for Adaptive Optics through its National Science Foundation Science and Technology Center grant (#AST-987683) and by grants to the Akamai Workforce Initiative from the National Science Foundation and Air Force Office of Scientific Research (both administered by the NSF, #AST-0710699) and from the University of Hawaii.

• Maui Community College– Mark Hoffman

• Maui Economic Development Board– Leslie Wilkins

• 2008 Maui Short Course– Dave Harrington

– Ryan Montgomery

– Isar Mostafanezhad

– Mark Pitts

– Sarah Sonnet