UNE-EN 16604-30-03:2020

1.1 Purpose:

The Observing System Data Message (OSDM) is a standard message format to be used in the exchange of optical telescope, laser ranging station, and radar (observing systems) information between Space situational Awareness (SSA) data providers, owners/operators of observing systems, and other parties. These messages can inform SSA data providers, which are the consumers of observing system output data, on the parameters of the observing systems.

The OSDM standard will:

a) enable consistent data exchange between observation data providers and SSA systems;

b) facilitate data exchange automation and ingestion of observation data from different providers;

c) facilitate SSA system architecture performance simulations; and

d) provide a quick way to estimate the expected performance from one observing system.

1.2 Applicability:

The Observing System Data Message standard is applicable to all SSA activities, especially Space Surveillance and Tracking (SST) and near-Earth objects (NEO), and other fields where the acquisition of astrometric and photometric data plays a role (e.g. space debris, observational astronomy). The standard contains a message designed to contain observing system parameters exchanged between producers and consumers of astrometric and/or photometric data. These data include observing system name, location, type (optical/radar), operator and tracking/survey performance.

The OSDM is suitable for both manual and automated interaction, but will not contain a large amount of data. The message is self contained and can be paired with several Tracking Data Messages (TDM specified reference [1]), FITS images (specified in reference [2]), or other formats containing the observation data.

The OSDM standard only applies to the message format, structure and content. The exchange method is beyond the scope of the standard, and it is due to be specified in an ICD, though an ICD is not always required. The methods used to produce the data in the message are also beyond the scope of the standard.

1.3 Document structure:

Clause 5 provides an overview of the OSDM.

Clause 6 described the structure and content of the 'keyword = value' (KVN) version of the OSDM.

Clause 7 described the strucuture and content of the XML version of the OSDM.

Clause 8 describes the data and syntax of OSDM messages, in both KVN and XML.

Annex A lists agreed values for some of the OSDM keywords.

Annex B presents some examples of OSDMs.