Analysis of Observation Capability of Ground-based Facilities and Stations to Space Debris

When building-up ground-based stations for space debris observations, it is needed first to imitate and analyze the observation capability by numerical simulations. The important criterion of the observation capability of the station is the observational quantity and frequency of space debris observed by the facilities. The observation capability can be improved by using advanced facilities and selecting suitable station positions. In this paper, the software STK and PROOF was used to make numerical simulation and comparison analysis for the observation capability （both passing and detection rate） of radar and optical facilities in different stations. Some preliminary conclusions were gained and might be profitable to the design of the space debris surveillance network. There are a few problems in calculation with existing observation capability evaluating and simulation software, so it is necessary to built new software which is wieldy and convenient and has better and flawless function. Some suggestions were made in the article for the new software. The Performance model of radar and telescope should be optimized. Phased array radar, bistatic radar, scan patterns of both radar and telescope, and hybrid observation of several failities should be easily simulated. Computational efficiency should be advanced to decrease computing time.