Patrick Seitzer
The majority of artificial objects in Earth orbit are non-functional: inactive satellites, spent rocket boosters, and parts of spacecraft resulting from collisions and fragmentation events. This population of orbital debris is increasing with time, and represents a collision risk to active spacecraft. Studying the debris population at geosynchronous orbit (GEO, period = 23h56m) is a problem in applied optical astronomy. The orbital elements are constantly changing due to gravitational orbital perturbations from the Earth, Sun, and Moon, and solar radiation pressure. I will show results from optical surveys of GEO debris conducted with the University of Michigan’s 0.6-m Curtis-Schmidt telescope and the 6.5-m Magellan telescopes. In addition, photometry and spectroscopy of these objects can in principle provide a clue to their surface characteristics and possible material makeup.