For the first time, a team at Western University in collaboration with the Defence Research and Development Canada has used a satellite-tracking camera system to monitor satellites over the high Arctic.
The system was developed from meteor tracking technology developed at Western University and uses “very low-cost cameras.”
According to Western the satellite tracking system is “now operating and deployed at four sites across Canada, including Eureka.” The system “is producing the first continuous satellite monitoring by Canadians for Canadians of all space objects flying over the country. The Eureka location has demonstrated the unique capability to track sun-synchronous space objects within orbital ‘choke points’ only visible from Canada’s far north, or Antarctica.”
“The system is able to detect all Canadian and foreign objects passing over the country larger than 30 cm in size. To date, the system has made nearly half a billion individual observations of more than 17,000 unique satellites. More than 90 per cent of all active satellites crossing Canadian territory in Low Earth orbit (the region of space around Earth where satellites orbit at relatively low altitudes, typically less than 2,000 kilometers) are regularly registered by the system. These data are used to update their orbits and provide information about individual satellite attitudes and characteristics.”
Other sensor sites are located in Osoyoos, British Columbia, and Lucky Lake, Saskatchewan with expansion to other locations planned.
Peter Brown, Canada Research Chair in planetary science and member of Western’s Institute for Earth & Space Exploration (Western Space) said, “The rapid proliferation of mega constellations of satellites, like Starlink, make it an urgent priority for Canada to have its own capabilities to persistently monitor wide swaths of space above the country. At a relatively low cost, this system provides sovereign coverage of Canada’s north while greatly advancing the understanding of the state of the space environment.”
Western says “the cameras are unique as they are very sensitive, monitor the entire sky and collect images tens of times per second.”
Denis Vida, a researcher at Western, who leads the Global Meteor Network, an initiative of Western Space added, “As satellite constellations begin to dominate the skies, our original meteor tracking algorithms are now fine-tuned based on our operational experience of data collection over the last year to track almost everything passing over Canada.”
