Increasing GMV’s footprint on military SST/SDA, delivery of FocusSST for the German armed forces

In the summer of 2022, GMV signed a contract with OHB DC for the delivery of our full suite of Space Surveillance and Tracking (SST) COTS Software solutions (FocusSST) to the military side of the German Space Situational Awareness Center (GSSAC), known as Weltraumlagezentrum.

FocusSST comprises an unparalleled set of tools providing capabilities for:

• SST sensor data simulation (Ssdsim).
• Orbit propagation/determination and sensor calibration (Sstod).
• Catalogue build-up and maintenance (Catmai).
• Resident objects catalogue database (Orca).
• SST sensors scheduling and tasking (Senplanner).
• Collision prediction and avoidance (Closeap).
• Fragmentation detection and analysis (Fragdet).
• Re-entry prediction and analysis (Reenpred).
• Telescopes images processing (Gendared).
• Maneuver planning and optimization (Gemopt).
• Overflight prediction (Overflight).
• Data visualization (Visualfocus)

Following an initial delivery after contract signature, our team of leading SST experts continued to upgrade these tools and make intermediate deliveries to our customer in an iterative development cycle. Key upgrades include the ability to detect maneuver trends (pattern of life), a new collision probability method (Foster), user authentication functionality (single-sign-on), new database table handling, elevation mask and zone grouping for overflight analysis, visibility of the re-entry and decay risk heat map, and some additional measurement formats (GESTRA, SATAM) and atmospheric models (GRAM, Harries-Priester, Jacchia-Roberts) for the orbit determination process.

The combined efforts of our incredible team led to a successful final delivery of FocusSST in late September. A possible further collaboration on the use of these tools is being sought.