SAURASYS-1, Look Up's first space surveillance radar. Credit: Look Up
TAMPA, Fla. — Space surveillance venture Look Up plans to use Skynopy’s ground station network to help automate its proposed low Earth orbit (LEO) collision avoidance service, the French startups announced June 17.
Skynopy is under contract to demonstrate the integration of ground sites with ATLAS², a service Europe is co-funding to enable satellites to respond in near real time after Look Up’s terrestrial radars detect a collision threat.
As part of an initial phase, Skynopy aims to define how its network would interface with ATLAS² (Acceleration Towards LEO Automatic Space Safety), simulate contacts between satellites and ground stations, model on-board radio behavior and provide a test environment for collision avoidance scenarios.
This first phase is due to wrap up around the middle of this year. If successful, it would be followed by in-orbit tests with an operational satellite, culminating in an end-to-end demo of a largely automated collision avoidance system.
