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Operation of satellites and research of their orbital regions depend on both modelling e. g. of the environment and data banks consisting of objects with preferably high accuracy ephemerides and, if possible, completeness of the number of objects in this region. If concentrating on the geostationary regime, it is assumed that a detection size of an object of 30cm or larger is sufficient for the aforementioned topics. It is of international interest to exchange and access this data on a low cost basis. For this reason, SMARTnet™ was developed, allowing for interchanging data, especially tracklets, within the community of sensor owners or sensor operators on a no exchange of funds basis. The first contributors to SMARTnet™ are operating optical telescopes and produce tracklets. In this context, a tracklet is a series of the angle pair right ascension and declination including the corresponding epoch of a single object. In 2017, SMARTnet™ was opened for international co-operations. The main objective of SMARTnet™ is the exchange of tracklets, allowing for each participating entity to develop own catalogues, own algorithms, and own products. Since then, Applied Defense Solutions has joined SMARTnet™ and is the first Partner. A basic statistic of the data available through SMARTnet™ is shown as well as first results with respect to a first data bank of objects, which can be derived from this data.

Operation of geostationary satellites and research of the geostationary region depend on both modelling e. g. of the environment and data banks consisting of objects with preferably high accuracy ephemerides and, if possible, completeness of the number of objects in this region. Of course, due to physical reasons, not all objects are detectable, but for now it is assumed that an object size of 30cm or larger is sufficient for the aforementioned topics. It is of international interest to exchange and access this data on a low cost basis. For this reason, SMARTnetTM was started, allowing for interchanging data, especially tracklets, within the community of telescope owners or telescope operators on a no exchange of funds basis. In this context, a tracklet is a series of the angle pair right ascension and declination including the corresponding epoch of the same object. Over one year ago, SMARTnetTM was opened for international co-operations. The main objective of SMARTnetTM is the exchange of tracklets, allowing for each participating entity to develop own catalogues, own algorithms, and own products. In this paper, the consortium, consisting of the Astronomical Institute of the University of Bern (AIUB) and the German Space Operation Center (GSOC) at DLR, is presenting the current partners of SMARTnetTM, statistics of data collected as well as results like e. g. tracklet correlation. Furthermore, an outlook of future contributions is given.

Situation awareness of objects in the geostationary regime is of great interest for collision avoidance by active satellites as well as for scientific research on the space debris population and their evolution over time. As the number of satellite operators and researches in this field is large, it makes sense to set up a sensor network with multiple entities to combine all available sensor measurements for a comprehensive situational picture. This will allow for cost sharing and optimising observation strategies to gain as much information as possible about the desired objects. Therefore, the German Space Operation Center, GSOC, together with the Astronomical Institute of the University of Bern, AIUB, are setting up a global optical sensor network called SMARTnet(TM): the Small Aperture Robotic Telescope Network. The main objective is the free exchange of all information gathered, mainly in form of tracklet observations, within all partners involved. In this paper, the operation of the first half year of SMARTnet is presented. Results on object correlation, loss of objects of the catalogue, statistics on observable nights as well as accuracy on orbit determination is shown. Furthermore, an outlook on future stations is given. Additionally, the partnering system is introduced including the possibility for other entities to join the network and it is shown how tracklets are exchanged.