United States Space Surveillance Network

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The United States Space Surveillance Network (SSN) detects, tracks, catalogs and identifies artificial objects orbiting Earth, e.g. active/inactive satellites, spent rocket bodies, or fragmentation debris. The system is the responsibility of United States Space Command and operated by the United States Space Force and its functions are:

• Predict when and where a decaying space object will re-enter the Earth's atmosphere;
• Prevent a returning space object, which to radar looks like a missile, from triggering a false alarm in missile-attack warning sensors of the U.S. and other countries;
• Chart the present position of space objects and plot their anticipated orbital paths;
• Detect new artificial objects in space;
• Correctly map objects traveling in Earth orbit;
• Produce a running catalog of artificial space objects;
• Determine ownership of a re-entering space object;

The Space Surveillance Network includes dedicated, collateral, and contributing electro-optical, passive radio frequency (RF) and radar sensors. It provides space object cataloging and identification, satellite attack warning, timely notification to U.S. forces of satellite fly-over, space treaty monitoring, and scientific and technical intelligence gathering. The continued increase in satellite and orbital debris populations, as well as the increasing diversity in launch trajectories, non-standard orbits, and geosynchronous altitudes, necessitates continued modernization of the SSN to meet existing and future requirements and ensure their cost-effective supportability.^[1]

SPACETRACK also developed the systems interfaces necessary for the command and control, targeting, and damage assessment of a potential future U.S. anti-satellite weapon (ASAT) system. There is an Image Information Processing Center and Supercomputing facility at the Air Force Maui Optical Station (AMOS).