L3Harris to sustain space electro-optical surveillance systems that track high-altitude satellites
PETERSON AIR FORCE BASE, Colo. – Electronics experts at L3Harris Technologies Inc. in Colorado Springs, Colo., will sustain an important U.S. space surveillance system under terms of a $9.3 million order announced last week.
Officials of the U.S. Air Force Space and Missile Systems Center at Peterson Air Force Base, Colo., are asking L3Harris (formerly Exelis) to sustain the Ground-Based Electro Optical Deep Space Surveillance (GEODSS) weapons system.
The GEODSS tracks deep-space objects such as high-orbit satellites from its three global sites in Socorro, N.M.; Maui, Hawaii; and the island of Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean. The system tracks more than 2,5000 objects like geostationary communication satellites, which vary in altitude in space from 6,214 miles to nearly 28,000 miles above the Earth's surface.
GEODSS tracks space objects ranging from active satellite sensor payloads like weather monitoring satellites or Global Positioning System satellites, to space junk like rocket bodies from previous satellite launches or debris from past satellite breakups.
Each GEODSS site uses three one-meter telescopes with sensitive digital cameras to keep track of high-altitude space objects. These telescopes can see objects 10,000 times dimmer than the human eye can detect.
The GEODSS electro-optical telescopes take rapid electronic snapshots of satellites in the night sky, which show up on the operator’s console as tiny streaks. Computers then measure these streaks and compute the position of satellites in their orbits. Star images, which remain fixed, function as reference or calibration points for each of the three telescopes.
The GEODSS system has been an important piece of the space situational awareness mission since the early 1980s.
For more information contact L3Harris Technologies online at www.l3harris.com, or the Air Force Space and Missile Systems Center at www.afspc.af.mil.
John Keller | Editor-in-Chief
John Keller is the Editor-in-Chief, Military & Aerospace Electronics Magazine--provides extensive coverage and analysis of enabling electronics and optoelectronic technologies in military, space and commercial aviation applications. John has been a member of the Military & Aerospace Electronics staff since 1989 and chief editor since 1995.
