HR001119S0035-22.pdf

Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) and Small Business Technology Transfer

(STTR)

Opportunity Announcement

HR001119S0035-22

Sparse Information Orbit Estimation for Proliferated LEO

Which program will fund this topic?

STTR

What type of proposals will be accepted?

Phase I Only

Technology Area(s): Sensor, Space Platforms DARPA Program: Blackjack

I. INTRODUCTION

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) Small Business Programs Office (SBPO) is issuing an SBIR/STTR Opportunity (SBO) inviting submissions of innovative research concepts in the technical domain(s) of Space Platforms and Sensors. In particular, DARPA is interested in understanding the feasibility of Sparse Information Orbit Estimation for Proliferated LEO.

This SBO is issued under the Broad Agency Announcement (BAA) for SBIR/STTR, HR001119S0035. All proposals in response to the technical area(s) described herein will be submitted in accordance with the instructions provided under HR001119S0035, found here:

https://www.fbo.gov/spg/ODA/DARPA/CMO/HR001119S0035/listing.html

a. Eligibility The eligibility requirements for the SBIR/STTR programs are unique and do not correspond to those of other small business programs. Please refer to Section 3.1, Eligible Applicants, of HR001119S0035 for full eligibility requirements.

The technology within this topic is restricted under the International Traffic in Arms Regulation (ITAR), which controls the export and import of defense-related material and services. Proposers must disclose any proposed use of foreign nationals, their country of origin, and what tasks each foreign national would accomplish in the statement of work in accordance with applicable proposal preparation instructions. Please refer to section

2.3 of the HR001119S0035 for further information on Export Control.

b. Anticipated Structure/Award Information Please refer to Section 1, Funding Opportunity Description provided in HR001119S0035 for detailed information regarding SBIR/STTR phase structure and flexibility.

For this SBO, DARPA will accept Phase I proposals only, for cost of up to $225,000 for a 9-month period of performance.

https://www.fbo.gov/spg/ODA/DARPA/CMO/HR001119S0035/listing.html

Proposers awarded a Phase I contract will be eligible to submit a proposal for Phase II, for a cost up to $1,750,000. This includes a 12-month base period not to exceed a cost of $1,000,000 and a 6-month option period not to exceed $500,000. A separately priced option of up to $250,000 must also be proposed for contractors who would like to be considered for participation in the DARPA Embedded Entrepreneur Initiative. Refer to Section 2.5, DARPA Embedded Entrepreneur Initiative, of HR001119S0035 for detailed information on EEI.

Proposers should refer to Section 4, Application and Submission Information, of HR001119S0035 for detailed proposal preparation instructions. Proposals that do not comply with the requirements detailed in HR001119S0035 and the research objectives of this SBO are considered non-conforming and, therefore, are not evaluated or considered for award.

Phase I proposals shall not exceed 20 pages. Phase I commercialization strategy shall not exceed 5 pages. This should be the last section of the technical volume and will not count against the 20-page limit. Please refer to Appendix A, Phase I Proposal Instructions, of HR001119S0035 for detailed instructions on proposal preparation.

c. Human Subjects Research (HSR)/Animal Use Proposers that anticipate involving Human Subjects Research or Animal Use must comply with the approval procedures detailed at http://www.darpa.mil/work-with-us/additional-baa. For more information, refer to Section 4.7, Human Subjects/Research/Animal Use, of HR001119S0035.

Proposers are highly encouraged to clearly segregate research tasks from human and/or animal testing tasks to allow for partial funding while internal and DoD approvals are being obtained.

d. Evaluation of Proposals Section 5, Evaluation of Proposals, in HR001119S0035 provides detailed information on proposal evaluation and the selection process for this SBO.

e. Due Date/Time Full proposal packages (Proposal Cover Sheet, Technical Volume, Price/Cost Volume inclusive of supporting documentation, and Company Commercialization Report) must be submitted via the DoD SBIR/STTR Proposal Submission website per the instructions outlined in HR001119S0035 no later than October 28, 2019 at 2:00 PM E.T.

II. TOPIC OVERVIEW

a. Objective

Investigate orbit determination techniques suitable for tracking the emerging proliferated Low Earth Orbit (LEO) constellations without expanding or upgrading ground or space surveillance infrastructure.

http://www.darpa.mil/work-with-us/additional-baa http://www.darpa.mil/work-with-us/additional-baa

b. Description Commercial companies and the DoD have both proposed greatly expanding the number of satellites operating in LEO. The current Space Surveillance Network (SSN) was not designed to handle the coming quantities of satellites. DARPA desires to investigate orbit determination techniques that address proliferated LEO constellations without expanding or improving the current Space Surveillance Network.

Multiple companies have submitted FCC filings for large LEO constellations with sizes that range from hundreds to thousands of satellites in the next 3 to 5 years. Many of these satellites will cluster in two altitude ranges, one at ~500 km and one at ~1,200 km, creating dense regions that will tax existing space surveillance sensors. Additionally, the DoD is exploring proliferated constellations of LEO satellites ranging from 90 to 400 satellites. With most of these potential new satellites concentrated in just two altitude bands, the existing problems with associating measurements to a specific satellite track will become increasingly difficult.

Attempting to build out an increasing number of space surveillance sensors to keep pace with the LEO constellations is a costly proposition. Without additional sensors, the number and frequency of sensor collects against any given object will go down, resulting in increasingly sparse data sets from which to estimate a satellite’s orbit.

This STTR topic aims to address this challenge through development of new estimation techniques that use existing, sparse data sources. Approaches that develop or modify space surveillance sensors are NOT of interest.

c. Phase I Phase I will focus on developing novel estimation techniques to address proliferated LEO environments utilizing existing, sparse data sources. Performance of the proposed technique should be simulated against a limited number of test cases. The test cases for Phase I should be included in the proposal. Examples of test cases that are of interest to DARPA are two closely spaced objects in similar orbits, two objects that have periodic conjunctions, and two objects that are angularly close but in differing orbits. The proposed technique should be assessed for robustness and performance as a function of measurement accuracy and rate. Proposals should address the limitations of existing sensor networks as a basis for comparing new sensing and filtering approaches. Ideally, proposed approaches should not levy additional requirements on space surveillance sensors. An example of a sparse data set is NASA’s ground based satellite ranging (SLR) observations, available at NASA’s Open Data Portal.

i. Schedule/Milestones Phase I fixed payable milestones for this program should include:

Month 1: Report on the proposed approach, a functional description of the approach, and the test cases to be used in Phase I

Month 3: Report on tract accuracy of proposed technique for the test cases Month 5: Report on robustness of proposed techniques for the test cases

Month 7: Report on sensitivity of proposed technique to measurement quality and update rate for the test cases and proposed improvements for Phase II

Month 9: Final Phase I Report

d. Phase II Phase II will focus on improving the performance of the Phase I orbit determination approaches and measuring the performance against realistic future space catalogs.

Expanding on the Phase I work, which measured the performance against two objects in specific scenarios, the performance of the proposed orbit determination approach is to be evaluated in the context of dense constellations and congested orbital regimes within LEO. For evaluation, the following test cases should be used: current LEO catalog plus 500 spacecraft, plus 1,000 spacecraft, plus 10,000 additional spacecraft. In each case, it should be assumed the additional spacecraft are split between the two altitude regimes in the summary. Performance should also be evaluated against the case where large fractions of the additional spacecraft are slowly maneuvering.

i. Schedule/Milestones/Deliverables Phase II fixed milestones for this program should include:

Month 2: Updated functional description of proposed orbit determination approach and description of the modeling/simulation approach for Phase II

Month 6: Interim report describing orbit determination approach and performance for the current LEO satellite/debris catalog plus 500 additional satellites

Month 9: Interim report quantifying system performance across all sets of additional spacecraft and an implementation guide

Month 12: Final Phase II report documenting final results

Phase II option milestones include:

Month 3: Interim report characterizing performance against proposed LEO communications constellations plus the existing catalog.

Month 6: Final report documenting performance against proposed LEO constellations plus the existing catalog.

e. Dual Use Applications (Phase III) Orbit determination techniques developed to address proliferated LEO environments have use in both DoD and commercial systems. Both the DoD and commercial constellation providers have vested interests in accurate satellite position knowledge.

Additionally, there are companies that provide space tracking/surveillance as a commercial service whose commercial offering would be improved by these techniques.

f. References I Hussein, C Roscoe, M Wilkins, and P Schumacher, “Information Theoretic Criteria for Observation-to-Observation Association,” DTIC, 2014

K DeMars, I Hussein, M Jah, and S Erwin, “The Cauchy-Schwarz Divergence for Assessing Situational Information Gain,” 15th International Conference on Information Fusion, IEEE, 2012

K DeMars, M Jah, and P Schumacher, “Initial Orbit Determination using Short-Arc Angle and Angle Rate Data,” IEEE Transactions on Aerospace and Electronic Systems, Vol 48 Issue 3, IEEE, 2012

g. Keywords Orbit Determination, Information Theoretic Estimation, Sparse Data, Proliferated Low Earth Orbit

III. SUBMISSION OF QUESTIONS

DARPA intends to use electronic mail for all correspondence regarding this announcement.

Questions related to the technical aspect of the research objectives and awards specifically related to this SBO should be emailed to HR001119S0035@darpa.mil. Please include BAA number HR001119S0035-22 in the subject line. All questions must be in English and must include the name, email address, and the telephone number of a point of contact.

DARPA will attempt to answer questions in a timely manner; however, questions submitted within 7 days of the proposal due date listed herein may not be answered. DARPA will post a consolidated Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) document. To access the posting go to:

http://www.darpa.mil/work-with-us/opportunities. Under the HR001119S0035-22 summary will be a link to the FAQ. The list will be updated up to one week prior to the proposal due date.

In addition to the FAQ document specific to this SBO, proposers should also review the SBIR/STTR General FAQ list at: http://www.darpa.mil/work-with-us/opportunities. Under the HR001119S0035 summary there will be a link to the general FAQ document.

Technical support for the DoD SBIR/STTR Proposal Submission website is available Monday through Friday, 9:00 a.m. – 6:00 p.m. ET. Requests for technical support must be emailed to sbirhelp@bytecubed.com with a copy to sbir@darpa.mil.