UA Team Part of International Space Surveillance Conference

University of Arizona researchers will be well represented at the upcoming Advanced Maui Optical and Space Surveillance Technologies Conference by presenting at more than a half-dozen panels, highlighting their expertise in everything from the imaging of satellites to data management.

The AMOS Conference, which begins Tuesday in Maui, Hawaii, is the largest international civil-military conference dedicated to space surveillance, bringing in hundreds of researchers from around the globe. The UA's prominence in the conference reinforces its lead in the emerging space surveillance industry.

"Our Space Object Behavior Sciences (SOBS) team will present a total of eight talks on a range of topics from daytime imaging of satellites to assessing United Nations guidelines on space debris mitigation," said Moriba Jah, director of the SOBS initiative at the UA. "I am so proud of our team, and the fact that we are the foundational fabric of all things related to space object behavior. We thrive on scientific and technological leadership and excellence, subject ourselves to internal and external rigor and scrutiny, embrace complexity and transparency, nurture a multidisciplinary scholarly environment, and thirst for continued global partnership and collaboration."

Jah, who will co-chair the session on astrodynamics at the conference, has authored or co-authored more than 75 articles in astrodynamics, engineering and other professional peer-reviewed journals and is a popular speaker on the topic of spacecraft debris, which he calls "the unknown iceberg equivalent in space."

The SOBS initiative, part of the UA's Defense and Security Research Institute, brings together globally recognized experts in engineering, space systems, imaging technology and high-capacity cyberinfrastructure to address the challenges of space debris and space domain awareness. The UA's capabilities in this area — from high-powered telescopes to the ability to manage large data, along with status as a top-20 public research institution — position the University as a national leader in space situational awareness.

The interdisciplinary UA SOBS team presenting at the weeklong meeting includes Michael Hart (Optical Sciences), Ramona Walls (CyVerse), Roberto Furfaro (Systems and Industrial Engineering), Vishnu Reddy (Lunar and Planetary Laboratory), Eric Pearce (Steward Observatory), David Gaylor (Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering) and David Gross (Systems and Industrial Engineering).