Development of the NASA MCAT Auxiliary Telescope for Orbital Debris Research

The National Aeronautical and Space Administration (NASA) has recently deployed the Meter Class Autonomous Telescope (MCAT) to Ascension Island. MCAT will provide NASA with a dedicated optical sensor for observations of orbital debris with the goal of statistically sampling the orbital and photometric characteristics of the population from low Earth to Geosynchronous orbits. Additionally, a small auxiliary telescope, co-located with MCAT, is being deployed to augment its observations by providing near-simultaneous photometry and astrometry, as well as offloading low priority targets from MCAT's observing queue. It will also be available to provide observational measurements to the Space Surveillance Network for the United States Air Force.