In the process of being developed by the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL), the Space-based Telescopes for Actionable Refinement of Ephemeris (STARE) is a constellation of low cost nano-satellites (less than 5Kg) in low-earth orbit dedicated to the observation of space debris in conjunction with a ground-based infrastructure for maintenance, coordination and data processing.
According to the STARE webpage, hundreds of satellites and tens of thousands of pieces of space junk—inactive satellites, parts of booster rockets, and lost astronaut tools, for example—are currently known to be in orbit around our planet, and the true number could be ten times that.
In STARE, each nano-satellite in the constellation is capable of recording an optical image of space objects (debris or assets) at various range and relative velocities as scheduled by the ground infrastructure based on their closest approach distance (typically less than 1000m). For an 18 nano-satellite constellation, STARE has the capability to reduce the collision false alarm rate by 99% up to 24 hours ahead of closest approach.
Find out more about STARE and its advantages, potential applications and development status: https://ipo.llnl.gov/?q=technologies-stare
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