Speaker
Mr
Bikram Pradhan
(University of Liège)
Description
The size distribution of space debris is an important input to
risk analysis for current and future space missions. In preparation for
future observations with the zenith-pointing 4-m International Liquid
Mirror Telescope, the 1.3-m Devasthal Fast Optical Telescope was used to
gain experience with zenith-pointing observations and, serendipitously,
to detect, identify and characterize orbital debris. Observational data
were acquired on 11 nights in May, 2015 using a 2048 $\times$ 2048-pixel CCD
detector operating in time-delay integration mode. Twelve moving objects
were detected, mostly during dawn and twilight. All were identified by
correlation with two-line element sets. By modeling each of the objects
as a diffuse Lambertian sphere with an albedo of 0.175, their effective
diameters were estimated from the observed apparent magnitudes,
altitudes, velocities and solar phase angles. Seven objects were found to
be in low Earth orbit and five in mid-Earth or geo-transfer orbits. The
apparent Gaia magnitudes of the identified objects range from 5.6 to 12.0
and the estimated effective diameters from 0.3 to 10.1 m. Images from the
future ILMT photometric survey are expected to provide detections of
objects having diameters as small as 3 cm in low-Earth orbit.
Primary author
Mr
Bikram Pradhan
(University of Liège)