How cubesats increase SSA and STM operational demands

CubeSats have shifted many missions from a few bespoke spacecraft to frequent launches of many small, lower-cost satellites, often with limited propulsion, tight power budgets, and reduced onboard navigation and communication margins.

Operationally, that makes Space Situational Awareness (SSA) and Space Traffic Management (STM) more demanding: more objects to monitor in crowded LEO regimes, faster conjunction screening cycles, and less time to react to high-risk close approaches.

Because CubeSats commonly fly as rideshares and deploy in clusters, early post-deployment tracking, reliable orbit determination, and sustained monitoring are critical to avoid lost objects, reduce collision risk, support insurance/mission assurance, and keep constellations compliant with debris-mitigation and responsible operations practices.

Look Up’s tracking, monitoring, and collision avoidance services for cubesats

Look Up supports CubeSat operators and institutional stakeholders by detecting and tracking LEO objects with ground-based SORASYS radars, including small objects down to a few cm, with centimetric accuracy and low-latency processing to maintain a timely space picture.

Through the SYNAPSE SSA digital platform, Look Up can fuse its sensor data with external data, catalogue objects, and deliver monitoring and alerting via API or interface, including real-time alerts within seconds/minutes of high-interest events.

For day-to-day flight dynamics and safety operations, Look Up provides collision avoidance support and warnings, with predictions at a 99.9% accuracy rate, plus tailored maneuver recommendations that account for CubeSat constraints, helping operators prioritize actions, reduce uncertainty during conjunctions, and scale safe operations across growing fleets.