Outer space is more congested than ever and now one Northern Colorado company is working with the Air Force to help catalog space debris. Loveland-based has strong ties with the military and works primarily in missile defense and cyber security. But with a $3.3 million dollar they鈥檒l be creating new algorithms to update the current cataloging system that was developed in the 1960s.
Dr. Josh Horwood is a research scientist at Numerica鈥�
鈥淩ight now, current sensors can see things down to about the size of a grapefruit. In about five to ten years sensors will be able to see things down to about 1 cm in size or the size of a penny. This will increase the number of things that need to be tracked from about 20,000 right now to about 200,000 objects in the future.鈥�
Horwood says keeping better track of existing space junk will prevent future collisions which can be costly and in turn create even more space debris.
