FLYEYE

Flyeye is a telescope, developed for the European Space Agency and funded by the Italian Space Agency, with a state-of-the-art optical sensor designed for Space Situational Awareness (SSA), combining a very wide Field of View (FoV), very high astronomical resolution and fast repositioning capabilities.

It is able to implement a NEO wide survey strategy, observing unknown dangerous asteroids rushing towards the Earth a week in advance.

For Space Surveillance & Tracking (SST), its survey observations allow to catalogue objects with a diameter of about 8 cm placed in High LEO orbit.

Activity carried out under ASI contract.

Under a programme of and funded by the European Space Agency. The view expressed herein can in no way be taken to reflect the official opinion of the European Space Agency

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FLYEYE SST NETWORK

Four Flyeyes, financed through PNRR funds thanks to the Italian Space Agency, will be the new space sentinels for the protection of the Space environment.

OHB Italia S.p.A. will deliver the ground-based telescopes dedicated to Space Surveillance & Tracking (SST) for space monitoring and security purposes. They will be installed in different geographical locations around the globe, both in the Northern and Southern hemispheres, allowing the reduction of collision risks among space assets and other operational spacecrafts or space debris.

Each Flyeye telescope has a field of view of 45 square degrees and is equipped with 16 separate optical chambers mimicking the complex structure of a fly’s compound eye. They are capable of tracking space debris in HLEO (High “Low Earth Orbit” between 1,000 and 2,000 km) and in the MEO (“Medium Earth Orbit” between 2,000 and about 34,000 km) by providing the basic data and trajectories to identify potential hazards to orbital infrastructure and to manage any anti-collision maneuvers.

The Network of Flyeye telescopes will be supplied with sophisticated software that will allow them to operate in synergy and will enable the creation of a catalogue of all orbiting objects, above a certain size threshold, in the HLEO/MEO orbital belt.

Activity carried out under ASI contract.

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