FocusCloseAp
Collision Risk Assessment Tool.
General Information
Operational Collision Avoidance Software
FocusCloseAp automatically downloads NORAD two-line element information from the internet, and, in combination with the FocusSuite family of products, generates orbit and maneuver data for a selected set of satellites and calculates several levels of close approach warnings. More detailed data and plots are produced as the approach becomes more of a concern.
The advanced scheduling features of FocusCloseAp enable all processing to be performed both automatically and regularly with minimal user interaction and users are notified of the program result.
- Using orbital information, FocusCloseAp detects approaches between the satellite and external objects.
- If a close conjunction is detected, collision avoidance maneuvers can be calculated.
- Support for large fleets of satellites is available with integrated input forms and reports, as well as optimized calculations.
Orbital information from:
- Target satellite: operational orbit.
- External objects: two-line elements (TLEs) downloaded from the internet, propagated with SGP and a proprietary algorithm to increase precision.
- Catalog filtering is a CPU-intensive task (thousands of objects are considered and propagated).
- First, focusCloseAp applies the classic apogee-perigee filter, which is the most efficient.
- Then, it applies a smart filter to exclude all remaining objects that cannot produce a close conjunction at the time of the analysis.
- A precise root finder is used to calculate the exact moment of the closest approach.