Star sensor image on-board processing for orbiting objects detection-spot

The increasing number of space activities has led to the growth of the population of Resident Space Objects (RSOs), i.e., satellites and space debris. The existing catalogues for RSOs are essentially based and updated by on-ground radars or optical measurements and their main limitation is related to the distance between the observer and the RSOs and the not continuous monitoring of the space segment. Such a limitation can be solved by using a network of space-based measurements. This work proposes the use of star sensors as RSOs detectors, taking advantage of their presence on many platforms. The status of the study conducted by the School of Aerospace Engineering of Sapienza University of Rome in the framework of the Italian Space Agency project SPOT (Star sensor image on-board Processing for Orbiting objects deTection) is described together with the architecture, design, state of development and preliminary results both for the on-board part of the system and the ground one. In the end, future developments will be presented and discussed.