Space Control

• Space Control ›
  • LINEAR ›
• Air and Missile Defense Technology ›
• Communication Systems ›
• Cyber Security and Information Sciences ›
• ISR Systems and Technology ›
• Advanced Technology ›
• Tactical Systems ›
• Homeland Protection ›
• Air Traffic Control ›
• Engineering ›

More about the Space Control mission

• Future outlook and focus for upcoming year

Principal Accomplishments

• In September 2010, the Space-Based Space Surveillance (SBSS) satellite was launched from Vandenberg Air Force Base. This satellite, built by Boeing and Ball Aerospace, is based on technologies and techniques demonstrated in the Laboratory’s Space-Based Visible (SBV) program, which developed a contributing, operational sensor for the Space Surveillance Network between 1997 and 2008. In addition, the Laboratory provided SBSS with operational software, developed under the Optical Processing Architecture at Lincoln (OPAL) program, for mission planning and data processing. SBSS will provide significant capability improvement to the nation’s space situational awareness capability.

This rendering shows an MIT and Lincoln Laboratory computer-aided design of a passive microwave sounder concept packaged in a nanosatellite (CUBESAT) form factor.
• Continuing its history of developing passive microwave remote sensing systems and exploitation algorithms, the Laboratory explored novel concepts for hyperspectral microwave sounding. This year, the first CUBESAT bus and payload concept were developed.

• The Laboratory, leveraging its accomplishments on the Extended Space Sensors Architecture Advanced Concept Technology Demonstration, is now working with the Air Force and the broader space community on incorporating the lessons learned into a comprehensive net-centric system for meeting space surveillance needs.

• Lincoln Laboratory contributed significantly to the development of the overall system architecture for the nation’s space control capability. Analyses and results are heavily influenced by experiments with prototype hardware, algorithms, and software systems. Close connections to the operations and the user community allow implementation of real user needs into the emerging architecture.

• The Space Surveillance Telescope, a unique 3.5 m telescope, designed and developed to synoptically search deep space for microsatellites, achieved first light in February 2011.

• The Haystack Ultrawideband Satellite Imaging Radar (HUSIR) will enable imaging of satellites in low Earth orbits with much higher resolution than currently possible. In 2011, the installation and initial alignment of the new antenna surface was completed. HUSIR will begin W-band satellite imaging operations in 2013 after integration and testing of the X‑ and W-band transmitters and receiver electronics.