We’re excited to share that SenseICs Corporation has been awarded a NASA - National Aeronautics and Space Administration contract to develop SWIR-CLEAR: SWIR Custody of LEO Debris with an Event-Based Acquisition Receiver! 🛰️🌌
As low Earth orbit becomes increasingly congested, smaller orbital debris presents a growing risk to satellites, spacecraft, and crewed missions. SWIR-CLEAR will explore a new approach to this challenge using short-wave infrared (SWIR) event-based sensing to detect and maintain custody of faint, fast-moving debris.
Unlike conventional frame-based cameras, our event-based architecture responds asynchronously to changes in a scene, enabling lower latency, reduced data bandwidth, and improved sensitivity to transient moving targets. The technology is designed to support tracking of debris as small as approximately 1 cm in LEO.
This project builds on SenseICs’ technology heritage in event-based infrared ROIC developments from Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) DTS-1024 project, as well as the Ohio Federal Research Network (OFRN) Space GUIDE project.
We’re proud to continue collaborating with NASA to advance next-generation radiation-hardened sensing technologies that could strengthen orbital debris tracking, space situational awareness, orbit refinement, sensor handoff, and future debris-removal operations.