The J-MAPS Mission: Improvements to Orientation Infrastructure and Support for Space Situational Awareness

[Abstract] The Joint Milli-Arcsecond Pathfinder Survey (J-MAPS) mission is a star mapping microsat mission proposed for launch in the 2011 timeframe. The primary objectives of J-MAPS are to generate star catalogs that are 15 times more accurate at current epoch (2007) and 100 times denser than those based on the Hipparcos mission, demonstrate the ability to measure pointing to 10 milliarcseconds (mas) and control pointing to 50 mas on-orbit with a microsat bus, and to mature and risk reduce technology for next generation attitude determination systems, and both downand up-looking imaging systems. The instrument, a 15 cm aperture telescope with an 8k x 8k CMOS-Hybrid focal plane array, will observe stars to 1 mas mission accuracy down to 12 magnitude, with reduced accuracy to 15 magnitude. J-MAPS can also be used to observe resident space objects with extreme metric accuracy, with the potential to contribute significantly to the space surveillance network's ability to rapidly determine orbits, recover maneuvers, assess conjunctions and update the space object catalog. These capabilities, to be demonstrated onorbit, will complement the capabilities of future systems and can actually serve as an SSA asset multiplier by reducing the individual target workload on these future systems, increasing overall target throughput.