Parallel sessions

The population of artificial objects in the already crowded near-Earth environment is growing rapidly. Constellation operators are licensing and launching satellites into low Earth orbit at an unprecedented rate, impacting the quality of the night sky from both a cultural and scientific perspective, and placing enormous strains on archaic surveillance infrastructures, many of which were designed in the Cold War era. Fragmentation events, not always accidental, continue to pollute key orbital regions with debris, while near misses between uncontrolled objects are becoming commonplace. The recent Russian anti-satellite test has served to highlight that the deterioration of the operational environment may be outpacing efforts to regulate activities, promote sustainable practices, and protect the space-based services that we, as a society, have come to rely on. Threats to satellite safety have the potential to impact security on the ground, communications that are essential to the global economy, navigation by land, air, and sea, alongside a host of scientific applications, hence the importance of achieving sustainable operations in space. Astronomers and solar physicists are well-placed to help improve our understanding of the near-Earth environment. The pairing of bespoke observational strategies with existing or future ground-/space-based astronomical instrumentation could enhance the current generation of satellite and debris catalogues. Investigations into space weather and atmospheric physics could inform future models for propagating orbital states and predicting the evolution of the debris environment. Algorithms developed for data reduction, classification, astrodynamics, tracking, and association, could all find themselves transferable when applied to near-Earth surveillance. These are just a few examples of how expertise within the NAM community may find useful application in the field of "Space Domain Awareness" (SDA), which holds at its core the principle of establishing safe and sustainable use of the space environment. Opportunities exist for collaborations between academic and industrial partners, for example those informed by the ongoing programme of the STFC-supported Global Network On Sustainability In Space (GNOSIS). This session aims to facilitate cross-sector discussions between NAM researchers of all levels of involvement in SDA, with the aim of exploring potential solutions to the knowledge gaps identified in the 2021 SDA session. The main aim for the session is to highlight ways in which members of the NAM community can apply their expertise to the problem of space domain awareness, and provide an opportunity for researchers across different sectors, with differing levels of experience, to meet and discuss ideas.