Navy Calibration of the Us Space Surveillance Network Using Satellite Laser Ranging

A Special Perturbations Space Object Catalog is currently maintained at Naval Space Command with a weighted batch least squares estimator. The first and second central moments of the satellite observation errors are required by these normal equations in the form of an observation error covariance matrix. Accurate orbits, estimated from satellite laser ranging, provide a suitable reference from which it is possible to estimate the sample moments of the observation errors of the US Space Surveillance Network (managed by the Air Force Space Command) and the NAVSPASUR Fence (managed by the Naval Space Command). In this paper, the sensor calibration mission at Naval Space Command is reviewed with an emphasis on the quality of the SLR-based reference trajectories. Preliminary sensor calibration results are provided on NAVSPASUR Fence performance. Additional benefits of SLR to Space Catalog operations are also discussed.