Taxonomies are useful for providing structure when categorizing large numbers of near-Earth space objects by the types of maneuvers they perform. In particular, lateral thrusting, longitudinal thrusting, and drifting may be directly linked to detectable changes in the orbital elements that affect object location and orientation. The purpose of this work is to develop a fully-automated taxonomy of the geosynchronous objects based on dynamical principles. Groups of objects are found using clustering methods, and two clustering methods are compared for constructing the taxonomy. The first is an adaptive k-means algorithm that does not require a priori information. It is compared to an agglomerative clustering algorithm that utilizes limits on cluster sizes to form distinct clusters. The effectiveness of the automated taxonomy is determined by comparison with the European Space Agency’s DISCOS database and clusters from the Geosynchronous yearly report.
An Automated Taxonomy for Human-Made Objects in Geosynchronous Orbits
J Astronaut Sci
The Journal of the Astronautical Sciences ; 68 , 2 ; 480-502
2021-06-01
23 pages
Aufsatz (Zeitschrift)
Elektronische Ressource
Englisch
Debris in Geosynchronous Orbits
British Library Conference Proceedings | 1996
|Debris in Geosynchronous Orbits
British Library Online Contents | 1996
|Debris in Geosynchronous Orbits
British Library Conference Proceedings | 1996
|Radar Observations of Geosynchronous Orbits
British Library Online Contents | 1997
|Inclined and eccentric geosynchronous satellite orbits
AIAA | 1982
|