News & Events

First Daylight Laser Measurements of a Space Debris Object

10. August 2020:
On June 24 2020, AIUB acquired the first ever daylight observations of a space debris object using a geodetic laser at the Swiss Optical Ground station and Geodynamics Observatory Zimmerwald. Such measurements may be essential to reduce the orbit uncertainty of space debris objects, hereby allowing spacecraft operators to identify close conjunctions and to devise and execute efficient avoidance maneuvers.

Breakup of an Atlas 5 upper stage observed

1. April 2019:

On March 26 we were informed by our Russian colleagues (Vladimir Agapov) that they discovered a breakup of the Atlas 5 upper stage 2009-047B (SSN 35816; apogee - 34708.9km, perigee – 6675.6km) on March 25, 2019, at 22:23 UTC. The following night we were successfully observing fragments from this event with 3 sensors at the Swiss Optical Ground Station and Geodynamics Observatory Zimmerwald. The attached animated gif shows a series of observations from the 0.8m ZimMAIN telescope.