Space Debris Mitigation in France,Germany, Italy and United Kingdom

The Space systems today provide growing benefits to enhance the quality of humankind. However, as a by-product, the orbiting objects inevitably leaves some debris which after 50 years of space activities represent a concern for all space agencies and manufacturers and operators. Since last year no international agreement was in place to mitigate the growing population of space debris objects. The successful result obtained at UN-COPUOS in 2007 and available in the OOSA web site, now gives to the public, a set of voluntary international guidelines that could, if adopted by each space fairing Country, help in maintaining the present space environment. More further steps are necessary in the future to define a legal and normative framework. The paper will present the seven established UN Space Debris guidelines as well as examples of the minimum steps to be carried out at national level to enable the UN-COPUOS to start the discussion of the legal aspect associated with the space debris issue.     

An Overview of the Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite (LCROSS)

The Lunar Crater Observation Sensing Satellite (LCROSS), an accompanying payload to the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) mission (Vondrak et al. 2010), was launched with LRO on 18 June 2009. The principle goal of the LCROSS mission was to shed light on the nature of the materials contained within permanently shadowed lunar craters. These Permanently Shadowed Regions (PSRs) are of considerable interest due to the very low temperatures, <120?K, found within the shadowed regions (Paige et al. 2010a, 2010b) and the possibility of accumulated, cold-trapped volatiles contained therein. Two previous lunar missions, Clementine and Lunar Prospector, have made measurements that indicate the possibility of water ice associated with these PSRs. LCROSS used the spent LRO Earth-lunar transfer rocket stage, an Atlas V Centaur upper stage, as a kinetic impactor, impacting a PSR on 9 October 2009 and throwing ejecta up into sunlight where it was observed. This impactor was guided to its target by a Shepherding Spacecraft (SSC) which also contained a number of instruments that observed the lunar impact. A?campaign of terrestrial ground, Earth orbital and lunar orbital assets were also coordinated to observe the impact and subsequent crater and ejecta blanket. After observing the Centaur impact, the SSC became an impactor itself. The principal measurement goals of the LCROSS mission were to establish the form and concentration of the hydrogen-bearing material observed by Lunar Prospector, characterization of regolith within a PSR (including composition and physical properties), and the characterization of the perturbation to the lunar exosphere caused by the impact itself.     

Balloon-borne air traffic management (ATM) as a precursor to space-based ATM

The International Space University—Balloon Air traffic control Technology Experiment (I-BATE¹) has flown on board two stratospheric balloons and has tracked nearby aircraft by receiving their Automatic Dependent Surveillance-Broadcast (ADS-B) transmissions. Air traffic worldwide is facing increasing congestion. It is predicted that daily European flight volumes will more than double by 2030 compared to 2009 volumes. ADS-B is an air traffic management system being used to mitigate air traffic congestion. Each aircraft is equipped with both a GPS receiver and an ADS-B transponder. The transponder transmits an equipped aircraft's unique identifier, position, heading, and velocity once per second. The ADS-B transmissions can then be received by ground stations for use in traditional air traffic management. Airspace not monitored by these ground stations or other traditional means remains uncontrolled and poorly monitored. A constellation of space-based ADS-B receivers could close these gaps and provide global air traffic monitoring. By flying an ADS-B receiver on a stratospheric balloon, I-BATE has served as a precursor to a constellation of ADS-B-equipped Earth-orbiting satellites. From the ～30 km balloon altitude, I-BATE tracked aircraft ranging up to 850 km. The experiment has served as a proof of concept for space-based air traffic management and supports a technology readiness level 6 of space-based ADS-B reception.     

Criteria for developing and testing Transparency and Confidence-Building Measures (TCBMs) for outer space activities

Space systems play an important role in sustaining the development, prosperity and security of many nations. As more nations become critically reliant on space systems, questions of maintaining safety and strategic stability in outer space have come to the fore. Transparency and Confidence-Building Measures (TCBMs) for outer space activities have an important role to play in providing clarity about the intentions of States and in articulating norms of behaviour in outer space. TCBMs take several forms. They may be the elaboration of basic principles related to the exploration and use of outer space, political measures related to establishing norms of conduct, information-sharing activities to improve the transparency of outer space activities, operational practices which demonstrate a commitment to mutual cooperation in outer space, or consultative mechanisms. We present an analytical framework for evaluating potential TCBMs and illustrate the application of this framework to examples of potential operational, regulatory, treaty-based and declaratory TCBMs.     

A technique for mapping environmental change using digital Landsat data

This paper describes a procedure for detecting and mapping changes in vegetation cover using LANDSAT digital analysis techniques, and demonstrates how the procedure can be used as an aid to environmental monitoring. Digital image analysis is used to perform a historical comparison, and a computerized colour plotter is used to map the changes in vegetation.     

Basic space sciences in Africa

Through space applications, a number of social and economic programmes in education, communications, agro-climatology, weather forecasting and remote sensing are being realized within the African continent. Regional and international organizations and agencies such as the African Remote Sensing Council, the Pan-African Telecommunication Union and the United Nations system have been instrumental in making Africa conscious of the impact and implications of space science and technology on its peoples.The above notwithstanding, discernible interests in space research, to date, in Africa, have been limited to the work on the solar system and on interplanetary matters including satellite tracking, and to the joint African-Indian proposal for the establishment of an International Institute for Space Sciences and Electronics (INISSE) and the construction, in Kenya, of a Giant Equatorial Radio Telescope (GERT).During this “Transport and Communications Decade in Africa,” Africa's basic space research efforts would need to initially focus on the appropriateness, modification and adaptation of existing technologies for African conditions with a view to providing economic, reliable and functional services for the continent. These should include elements of electronics, communications, structural and tooling industries, and upper-atmosphere research. The experience of and collaborative work with India, Brazil and Argentina, as well as the roles of African scientists, are examined.     

Temperature-Driven Segmentation for Autonomous Anti-Tank Weapons

In this paper we discuss a simple temperature-driven segmentation technique that can be used for autonomous terminal guidance of anti-tank munitions. A ratio between two images from different IR bands is taken to form an emissivity independent image that is a function of temperature only. Size and temperature discrimination can then be used to find hot spots of interest. Candidate targets are segmented from the image about the points of interest using an.algorithm that finds all regions in multi-region objects and does not require a priori intensity information. Size and gross shape features are used to determine if the segmented objects are to be classified as targets. The key to this approach is the initial hot spot extraction. The temperature dependent ratio image allows quick and confident screening of the entire field of view, so that only the regions of interest require further processing. The described techniques effectively found tanks in the presence of common battlefield clutter when used with synthetic IR imagery provided by Georgia Tech Research Institute. The simplicity, effectiveness and potential speed of this technique make it ideal for autonomous guidance of expendable anti-tank weapons, especially where only low resolution IR imagery is available.     

Dextre: Improving maintenance operations on the International Space Station

The Special Purpose Dexterous Manipulator (SPDM), known as “Dextre”, is currently slated to launch in February 2008 for deployment on the International Space Station (ISS) as the final component of Canada's Mobile Servicing System (MSS). Dextre's primary role on the Space Station is to perform repair and replacement (R&R) maintenance tasks on robotically compatible hardware such as Orbital Replaceable Units (ORUs), thereby eventually easing the burden on the ISS crew.This burden on the on-orbit crew translates practically into crew time being a limited resource on the ISS, and as such, finding ways to assist the crew in performing their tasks or offloading the crew completely when appropriate is a bonus to the ISS program. This is already accomplished very effectively by commanding as many non-critical robotics tasks as possible, such as powering up and free-space maneuvering of the Space Station Remote Manipulator System (SSRMS), known as “Canadarm2”, from the Ground.Thus, beyond its primary role, and based on an increasing clarity regarding the challenges of external maintenance on the ISS, Dextre is being considered for use in a number of ways with the objective of improving ISS operations while reducing and optimizing the use of crew time through the use of ground control for various tasks, pre-positioning hardware, acting as a temporary storage platform to break an Extra Vehicular Activity (EVA) day into manageable timelines, and extending the physical reach and range of the Canadarm2.This paper discusses the planned activities and operations for Dextre an rationale for how these will help optimize the use of crew resources on the ISS.