Christine Thropp
The Office of the Director of National Intelligence’s advanced research and development arm has chosen four prime contractors to create technologies capable of tracking small space debris.
A-Tech, Advanced Space, SRI International and West Virginia University Research Corp. will work under the Space Debris Identification and Tracking program over an anticipated four-year period to help the Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity enhance detection, tracking and identification of miniature orbital space debris, ODNI said Tuesday.
The SINTRA initiative ultimately looks to safeguard manned spacecraft and other space assets from debris smaller than 10 cm in size. It has a group of 12 academic and private-sector organizations, including the prime contractors working toward that goal.
MIT Lincoln Laboratory, Naval Research Laboratory, Los Alamos National Laboratory and Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory make up the test and evaluation team for SINTRA.
The program was launched in July.
