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Space situational awareness (SSA) refers to collecting, analyzing, and keeping track of detailed knowledge of resident space objects (RSOs) in the space environment. With the rapidly increasing number of objects in space, the need for SSA grows as well. Traditional methods rely heavily on imaging RSOs from large, narrow field-of-view (FOV), ground-based telescopes. This research outlines the technology demonstration payload, Resident Space Object Near-space Astrometric Research (RSONAR)—a star tracker-like, wide FOV camera combined with commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) hardware to image RSOs from the stratosphere, overcoming the disadvantages of ground-based observations. The hardware components and software algorithm are described and evaluated. The eligibility of the payload for SSA is proven by the image processing algorithms, which detect the RSOs in the images captured during flight and the survival of the COTS components in the near-space environment. The payload features a low-resolution, wide FOV camera coupled with a Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA)-based platform that houses the altitude and time-based image capture algorithm. The newly developed payload in a 2U-CubeSat form factor was flown as a space-ready payload on the CSA/CNES stratospheric balloon research platform to carry out algorithm and functionality tests in August 2022. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the rapid increase in resident space objects (RSO), there is a growing demand for their identification and characterization to advance space simulation awareness (SSA) programs. Various AI-based technologies are proposed and demonstrated around the world to effectively and efficiently identify RSOs from ground and space-based observations; however, there remains a challenge in AI training due to the lack of labeled datasets for accurate RSO detection. In this paper, we present an overview of the starfield simulator to generate a realistic representation of images from space-borne imagers. In particular, we focus on low-resolution images such as those taken with a commercial-grade star tracker that contains various RSO in starfield images. The accuracy and computational efficiency of the simulator are compared to the commercial simulator, namely STK-EOIR to demonstrate the performance of the simulator. In comparing over 1000 images from the Fast Auroral Imager (FAI) onboard CASSIOPE satellite, the current simulator generates both stars and RSOs with approximately the same accuracy (compared to the real images) as STK-EOIR and, an order of magnitude faster in computational speed by leveraging parallel processing methodologies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]