![\"Tarek](\"https:\/\/www.ucf.edu\/wp-content\/blogs.dir\/20\/files\/2024\/05\/Tarek_Elgohary_for_web.jpg\")
Cislunar space, which stretches from the Earth to just beyond the moon\u2019s orbit, is about to become heavily trafficked over the next 10 years. With NASA\u2019s planned Artemis missions and other countries joining in the cislunar space race, there\u2019s an interest in observing, tracking and predicting the orbit of objects like asteroids and satellites so they don\u2019t collide with spacecraft.<\/p>\n
But the process of detecting and observing space objects, known as space domain awareness (SDA), faces challenges with the extensive volume of cislunar space.<\/p>\n
\u201cCislunar space is vast,\u201d says Tarek Elgohary, an associate professor of aerospace engineering. \u201cThe current SDA infrastructure, which is mostly Earth-based, is not equipped to provide the needed coverage in cislunar space. There is a need for fast and accurate solutions to quantify uncertainties to improve predictions and provide SDA information in the absence of continuous coverage.\u201d<\/p>\n
Elgohary and his team will develop those solutions with the support of a $350,000 grant from the Air Force Office of Scientific Research Dynamic Data and Information Processing Program. They will create a computational framework to rapidly and accurately track space objects in real time, onboard spacecraft or satellites like the Air Force Research Laboratory\u2019s Oracle, which is designed to increase SDA capabilities in cislunar space. The algorithms will allow Oracle and other spacecraft to operate autonomously without intervention from Earth.<\/p>\n