Radiometric sensitivity and resolution of synthetic tracking imaging for orbital debris monitoring

We consider sampling and detection strategies for solar illuminated space debris. We argue that the lowest detectable debris cross section may be reduced by 10-100x by analysis of phase-space-pixels rather than single frame data. The phase-space-pixel is a weighted stacking of pixels corresponding to a test debris trajectory within the very wide camera field-of-view (FOV). To isolate debris signals from background, exposure time is set to match the time it takes a debris to transit through the instantaneous field of view. Debris signatures are detected though a generalized Hough transform of the data cube. Radiometric analysis of line integrals shows that that sub-cm objects in Low Earth Orbit can be detected and assigned full orbital parameters by this approach