Space is cluttered. Commercial and military space systems must co-exist and as a fundamental pre-condition for the future use of space, attribution, conjunction avoidance, and a variety of military missions, space domain awareness is required. Simple put, the Air Force and Space Force need to know what is in space and where it is going to be, and when it is going to be there. A proven approach is space qualified beacon technology or some unique identifier on each satellite. This has been done before with optical reflectors and other techniques -- although there is active criticism of the SpaceX starlink reflectors polluting the night's sky. Alternatively, a small, low power, radio frequency (RF) beacon can serve as a unique, discrete and affordable method to track thousands of satellites efficiently without sacrificing mission performance, payload size, or creating optical pollution. Insureion is commercializing the successful CUBIT satellite radio frequency tag/beacon prototype technology in cooperation with SRI International, a non-for-profit research and development company. The CUBIT tag has been space qualified and deployed in space successfully as a proof of concept. However, the prototype only had a 30 day lifespan, limited power, limited features, and did not contemplate integration into other military capabilities like Space Fence. Insureion will further develop and prioritize the military needs during this phase through interactive discussions with customer and end-user organizations.
