Streamlining Observatory Development for GEO ASOs Data Acquisition, Processing, and Contribution from Amateur Astronomers using Small Aperture Telescopes

The current space environment is rapidly evolving to become a highly sophisticated medium with enhanced complexity than ever before due to thousands of Anthropogenic Space Objects (ASOs) traveling at astronomical speeds. Moreover, the number of these ASOs is constantly increasing due to recent ASAT experiments, satellite collisions, onboard explosions, rocket bodies and fragments, and an ever-increasing number of active satellites. The idea of crowd-sourcing astronomy observatories is not novel and has been published several times before; however, due to lack of procedures and standards, it has not yet been implemented. Moreover, due to standardization issues in data collection and catalog building between different organizations/agencies, data fusion presents its own challenges. Instead of revisiting the idea of crowdsourcing SDA data acquisition from Organization/Agency's perspective, this paper explores the idea of GEO SSA data acquisition, processing, and contribution from the perspective of an amateur astronomer using open-source commercially-off-the-shelf (COTS) equipment and software packages. Moreover, this paper sets nominal technical criteria for astronomical observatory that can be qualified for data collection. Furthermore, the paper explores the fundamentals of data processing using commercial software/algorithms and the subsequent contribution towards SSA data network for GEO ASOs.