meteors floating in space.

Space Object Understanding and Reconnaissance
of Complex Events (SOURCE)

A U.S. Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) Space University Research Initiative (SURI)

About the Project

Outer space is increasingly filled with satellites, no-longer working satellites, launch rockets, debris from launching satellites and some materials of space like meteorites. Many are too small for the network of radar stations, telescopes and even other satellites to spot. That can lead to debris or micro-meteorites damaging satellites or even threatening the International Space Station.

Space domain awareness (SDA) describes the knowledge and real-time understanding of these objects. The United States must overcome many technological challenges to achieve SDA dominance in the geostationary (GEO) region. The space beyond Earth's orbit - known as XGEO or cislunar space - is even more difficult to navigate. Fortunately, University at Buffalo researchers are up for the challenge. 

A research team led by Moises Sudit and John Crassidis has received a $5 million grant to improve our ability to track and monitor this growing collection of space debris.

Satellites and objects orbiting earth with a network overlay.

The Space Object Understanding and Reconnaissance of Complex Events (SOURCE) project is part of a newly established Space University Research Initiative (SURI) program that was created to spur university research into new technologies for the Air Force and U.S. Space Force (USSF).

The grant will focus on developing cutting-edge techniques for sensors and measurement strategies, data fusion and autonomy, as well as improving algorithms to better predict the movements of objects in space.

Funding Source: A U.S. Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) Space University Research Initiative (SURI)
Award Amount: $5 Million
Related Departments:

Principle Investigators
AFRL Logo.
John Crassidis.
“We’re tracking more than 27,000 pieces of debris orbiting Earth. These objects can threaten human and robotic space missions, satellites and other spacecraft. ”
3/12/24


John Crassidis, Moog Professor of Innovation and SUNY Distinguished Professor, UB Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering

Fred Kennedy, photo courtesy of the US Department of Defense.
“The U.S. needs to rapidly develop responses to threats that we can anticipate now, [threats] that could take existing organizations years or maybe decades to acquire a custom solution for. ”
3/12/24

Dr. Fred Kennedy
Inaugural Director of the U.S. Department of Defense
Space Development Agency

Moises Sudit.
“We are drowning in data yet starved for useful information. This project will allow us to find that actionable information for space decision-making that is otherwise buried among unusable noise. ”
3/12/24

Moises Sudit, Executive Director of UB's Collaborative Institute for Multisource Information Fusion and Professor, UB Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering

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Project Focus Areas

The SOURCE team’s approach is to significantly expand the research envelope to include developing new theoretical approaches leading to useful algorithms, and investigating new sensor concepts with meaningful data and information fusion to provide a revolutionary SDA capability to overcome both XGEO challenges and future SDA challenges within the GEO belt. Project focus areas include:

  • Dynamic Modeling
    3/12/24

    Conduct studies to significantly improve dynamic modeling capabilities for the entire XGEO region while incorporating tools from astrodynamics and state-of-the-art machine learning techniques.

  • Resident Space Object Tracking
    3/12/24

    Investigate new tracking approaches that significantly advance uncertainty quantification methods to enable accurate forecasting of space objects, and tracking maneuvering satellites.

  • Resident Space Object Characterization
    3/12/24

    Investigate new characterization approaches that go beyond traditional light curves, which also involves developing algorithms to autonomously detect attitude maneuvers.

  • Sensing
    3/12/24

    Investigate a spaced-based constellation involving passive sensors in the cislunar regime and provide new sensor tasking approaches to manage mission objectives.

  • Autonomous Navigation
    3/12/24

    Investigate novel approaches to enhance the ability to autonomously navigate within the entire XGEO regime and provide robust autonomous navigation capabilities in off-nominal conditions.

  • Decision-making and Situational Awarenss
    3/12/24

    Investigate new data fusion approaches to provide timely decision-making and actionable situational awareness, which includes novel approaches for behavior and intent estimation of unfriendly assets.

  • Verification and Validation
    3/12/24

    This standard will be applied across the board, to numerical algorithms, dynamical modeling, RSO tracking, RSO characterization, autonomous navigation and decision-making.  Where possible these V&V activities will be done within the SOURCE team, notably using our unique access to real data.

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Meet the Researchers

The project’s multidisciplinary team of investigators includes renowned researchers from the University at Buffalo, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Penn State University, Georgia Tech, and Purdue University. The team combines experts in cislunar astrodynamics, multi-modal sensing architectures, advanced data association algorithms, position and orientation estimation techniques, uncertainty quantification, RSO attribute estimation through characterization, dynamic sensing, catalog design, and autonomous decision-making element.

Principle Investigators:

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Last Modified December 12, 2022