The head of Roscosmos, Yuri Borisov, took part in the opening of the Russian optoelectronic complex for operational monitoring of space debris in South Africa.
Yuri Borisov noted that the rapid increase in the number of satellites in orbit leads to an increase in the threat of collisions of spacecraft. In 2022 alone, Russian near-Earth space monitoring systems detected more than 600 violations of the four-kilometer safety zone of the ISS, as well as more than 16 thousand cases of dangerous passages of space debris objects near the tracked satellites. Therefore, it is now very important to expand the network of space monitoring stations.
The Russian optoelectronic complex was built under a contract between the Scientific and Production Corporation "Precision Instrument Systems" (part of Roscosmos) and the South African National Space Agency. It can detect space debris at altitudes from 120 to 40 thousand km, as well as determine the angular coordinates of space objects and identify them.
The complex in South Africa became the second of four specialized optoelectronic complexes, the first one was installed in Brazil.