Orbits
Space Situational Awareness Activities of Other Countries
2016 – Canada: Sapphire and NEOSSat – Snapshot
Two low Earth orbiting Canadian satellites, Sapphire and NEOSSat, provided spaceborne space situational awareness (SSA) for Canada during 2016. While they are both SSA satellites, they fulfill different SSA missions.…
2012 – Canada: Sapphire
The ability to minimize false detections of missile launches is a feature of Canada’s Sapphire spacecraft, launched in February 2013. The C$## million (US$## million) spacecraft, which features a unique…
2013 – Canada: Sapphire
The ability to minimize false detections of missile launches is a feature of Canada’s Sapphire spacecraft, launched in February 2013. The C$## million (US$## million) spacecraft, which features a unique…
Space Situational Awareness Activities of Other Countries
2014 – Canada: Sapphire
Launched in February 2013 and fully operational as of January 2014, the Canadian Department of National Defence’s (DND’s) Sapphire satellite was designed to provide data about space objects orbiting the…
2015 – Canada: Sapphire and NEOSSat – Snapshot
Canadian SSA operations are conducted using two satellites: Sapphire and NEOSSat. The Canadian Department of National Defence (DND) uses Sapphire, which moves around the Earth in a sun-synchronous orbit to…
Infrastructure: Space Infrastructure – TSR 2012
Infrastructure: Space Infrastructure - TSR 2012 examines global human spaceflight operations to include the Chinese, and the US space stations, launch vehicles from all spacefaring nations, communications satellite constellations, PNT…
2010 – U.S. Space Surveillance Network – Snapshot
One specialized type of system that uses both satellites and ground stations is dedicated to space situational awareness (SSA). An SSA system tracks satellites and other objects orbiting Earth. This…