Credit: Me :D

Meteors and space objects research @ IRF


Daniel Kastinen Johan Kero Gabriel Borderes Motta

Credit: Me :D

Who am I?

  • Living in Kiruna since 2017
  • Finished PhD Nov. 2022
    From Meteors to Space Safety: Dynamical Models and Radar Measurements of Space Objects
  • Heired as permanent staff scientist February 2023
  • Task: Conduct research on meteors and space objects!

Meteors and space objects?

  • Daniel Kastinen
  • Johan Kero
    - Head of STAR, radars & meteors
  • Gabriel Borderes Motta
    - Post-doc, image analysis & dynamics
  • ...

Meteors and space objects

First topic:

Meteors

First topic:

Meteors

Where do meteoroids come from?

Rosetta OSIRIS - 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko

  • Comet sublimation
  • Asteroid collision
  • Catastrophic disruption
  • Interstellar?
  • Impact ejecta
  • ...

Meteors

Meteors

Current & planned

Meteor/meteoroid projects

  • AllSky7 deployment
  • Incorporate ablation models
  • EISCAT_3D raw data simulator
  • EISCAT_3D for meteor measurements
  • High altitude meteors
  • Interstellar meteoroids
  • Meteor clusters
  • Meteor infrasound new empirical model
  • Meteor infrasound propagation
  • Meteorite recovery
  • MAARSY meteor measurements
  • Implement meteoroid ejection models
  • Meteoroid stream simulations
  • Meteors shower search
  • Meteor shower intensity from trail radars
  • MU radar meteor head echo database
  • October draconids
  • Optical meteor database
  • PANSY radar meteor head echo database
  • Radar code/experiment design
  • MU and Tomo-e Gozen Geminids
  • 9P/Temple ejected meteoroids baggage

Current & planned

Meteor/meteoroid projects

  • AllSky7 deployment
  • Incorporate ablation models
  • EISCAT_3D raw data simulator
  • EISCAT_3D for meteor measurements
  • High altitude meteors
  • Interstellar meteoroids
  • Meteor clusters
  • Meteor infrasound new empirical model
  • Meteor infrasound propagation
  • Meteorite recovery
  • MAARSY meteor measurements
  • Implement meteoroid ejection models
  • Meteoroid stream simulations
  • Meteors shower search
  • Meteor shower intensity from trail radars
  • MU radar meteor head echo database
  • October draconids
  • Optical meteor database
  • PANSY radar meteor head echo database
  • Radar code/experiment design
  • MU and Tomo-e Gozen Geminids
  • 9P/Temple ejected meteoroids baggage

MU radar meteor head echo database

Shigaraki Middle and Upper Atmosphere (MU) radar, Japan

New generalized analysis method, why?

    Reliably investigate

  • Individual events
  • Anomalous events
  • Rare sub-populations

    • Apply on multiple radar systems

Design

pipeline

Design

model parameter estimation

Bayes' theorem

$$ P(\text{model} | \text{data}) = \frac{P(\text{data} | \text{model}) P(\text{model})}{P(\text{data})} $$

Design

pipeline

(Kastinen, D., Kero, J., 2022a.)

Some other upgrades:

  • Model matching levels (DOA & decoding)
  • Automatic calibration
  • Plug & play meteor models
  • Improved signal processing
  • Improved orbit determination
  • Improved antenna radiation models
  • Modern software design
  • ...

Results

new analysis

Results

new analysis

Kastinen, D., Kero, J., 2022a.

Results

new analysis

Credit: Wikimedia Commons (Seahen)

Results

new analysis

Credit: Wikimedia Commons (Lasunncty)

Results

high-altitude detections

Results

high-altitude detections

516 out of 106,000 events

Results

high-altitude detections

(Kastinen, D., Kero, J., 2022b.)

Results

high-altitude detections

(Kastinen, D., Kero, J., 2022b.)

Results

high-altitude detections

(Kastinen, D., Kero, J., 2022b.)

  • 305 / 106,000 events
    (~0.3%)
  • 74 > 130 km
  • 4 > 145 km

Results

high-altitude detections

group-D (soft cometary material): $k_b$ < 6.6

Results

high-altitude detections

"manual correction"

Results

January zeta-Leonids

AllSky7 deployment & development

AllSky7 deployment & development

AllSky7 deployment & development

AllSky7 deployment & development

Second topic:

Space debris

Second topic:

Space debris

What is space debris?

ESA - Time to act

  • Launch vehicles/rocket bodies
  • Fragmented/destroyed spacecraft
  • Non-functional artificial objects
  • Ablated/lost debris (Paint flecks, nuts and bolts, ...)
  • Nuclear reactor cooling
  • ...

Space debris

ESA - Time to act

Measuring resident (artificial) space objects

Current & planned

Space safety projects

  • ALIS_4D automatic SSA analysis
  • AllSky7 deployment
  • EISCAT_3D raw data simulator
  • EISCAT_3D for NEO measurements
  • EISCAT_3D for SSA activities
  • EISCAT UHF/VHF/SR RSO measurements
  • Meteorite recovery
  • Scheduling optimization
  • NOSTRA
  • Optical meteor database
  • Radar code/experiment design
  • Fragmentation of artificial space objects
  • Size estimation of artificial space objects
  • RSO radar data pipeline development
  • 9P/Temple ejected meteoroids baggage

Current & planned

Space safety projects

  • ALIS_4D automatic SSA analysis
  • AllSky7 deployment
  • EISCAT_3D raw data simulator
  • EISCAT_3D for NEO measurements
  • EISCAT_3D for SSA activities
  • EISCAT UHF/VHF/SR RSO measurements
  • Meteorite recovery
  • Scheduling optimization
  • NOSTRA
  • Optical meteor database
  • Radar code/experiment design
  • Fragmentation of artificial space objects
  • Size estimation of artificial space objects
  • RSO radar data pipeline development
  • 9P/Temple ejected meteoroids baggage

KOSMOS-1408

  • Low Earth orbit (perigee 465 km)
  • 82.60° inclination
  • 1,750 kg
  • Destroyed 15 November 2021
  • EISCAT UHF and ESR beampark campaigns
    • 2021-15-[19, 23, 25, 29]
    • 2022-04-05

Results

C. Space debris

Kosmos-1408 destruction:

Russian anti-satellite weapon

Credit: AstroDyn on YouTube

Results

C. Space debris

VIII.

Kastinen, D.,Vierinen J.,Grydeland T.,Kero J., 2022.

Results

C. Space debris

VIII.

Kastinen, D.,Vierinen J.,Grydeland T.,Kero J., 2022.

New size estimation method

Software

@ github.com/danielk333
metecho Meteor head echo analysis [transferring]
htpl Radar hard target processing lib [refactoring]
pyorb Kepler to cartesian elementson PyPI
pyant Radar antenna radiation patternson PyPI
ablate Ablation model interfaces [ongoing]
pyod Orbit determination interfaces [ongoing]
dasst Meteoroid stream simulations [Only prototype]

TODO
Include/develop sw for infrasound data, optical data, more radars ...

EISCAT 3D

Photo: EISCAT

EISCAT 3D

Photo: EISCAT

EISCAT 3D

Photo: EISCAT

    Technical information

  • Frequency 233~MHz
  • Power 3.6 MW (later 10 MW)
  • 1 Tx, 3 Rx (later 5 Rx)
  • 119/55/54 Sub-arrays at sites
    (~ 10,000 antennas in Skibotn)
  • Pointing down to 30$^\circ$ elevation