Using SIRIUS to simulate space/ground telescope observations of satellites, debris and asteroids from the visible to the thermal IR

Le résumé fourni par la source

Tracking of satellites, debris and asteroids is essential for space operations. Optical detection from space or ground telescopes offers an interesting alternative to radars. We developed at ONERA a software called SIRIUS (Simulateur InteRactif d’Images Ultra Spectrales) to simulate and predict these kind of observations. High spatial and spectral resolution calculations of the visible/IR signature of different targets from 0.3 µm to 14 µm can be performed. The calculation is optimized through parallelization of the ray tracing on the GPU. The paper will study theoretically the gain of information related to a spatially resolved or non-resolved (light-curves) optical detection from a ground or space telescope in order to understand the benefits given by the mixed use of visible and thermal IR bands (the LWIR in optics or the mid-IR N-band in astronomy). Simulations examples will be given for space/ground observations of different satellites, debris and asteroids.

Ce résumé expose les affirmations des auteurs. BNTIC ne l’interprète pas comme une validation indépendante des résultats.