Research

Among its initiatives, the SSC has published two editions of its report, “Best Practices for the Sustainability of Space Operations.” Today, 60 organizations have endorsed the first edition of the report and 45 have endorsed the second.

Crucially, the SSC’s framework distinguishes itself by rigorously integrating and expanding upon existing pivotal standards, treaties, and guidelines established by organizations such as the United Nations Committee for the Peaceful Use of Outer Space (COPOUS), the Inter-Agency Debris Committee (IADC), the International Organization for Standardization (ISO), and the Consultative Committee for Space Data Systems (CCDS). This work fosters a shared understanding of critical risks.

The International community has long sought methods to improve the accuracy of the orbit determination and propagation of satellites affected by atmospheric drag. Commercial and academic institutions are developing methods to improve the forecast accuracy of atmospheric drag inputs and density. CSSI has proposed a unique application of the Extended Kalman Filter to demonstrate the ability to estimate density corrections in real time, and to model them into the future. Testing these approaches, and comparing them to reference our independent ephemerides, is an important step to gauge the effectiveness of each approach. CSSI has led the collaboration between several organizations to establish baseline approaches to conducting this testing.

The CSSI team’s experience directly demonstrates that the community’s processes and procedures differ, leading to misunderstandings when flight safety is at stake. To address this, CSSI provides and maintains the free Number of Encounters Assessment Tool (NEAT). Using a fast, probability-based algorithm, NEAT enables you to assess collision risk by adjusting key parameters including constellation size, orbit altitude, and inclination. Our team has validated these techniques against real-world operational data.