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Requirements for the automation of an SLR system may stem from different applications. In Zimmerwald the main goals are in particular the automation of the routine ILRS observations, the Space Debris observations, the interleaved SLR and optical observations, as well as experimental measurements (e.g. time transfer, multi-static space debris observations, etc.). An overview will be provided on the different components related to automation, including the hardware, the hardware independent and hardware dependent software parts, and safety related issues. Different strategies of automation are shown for two of our measurements systems. Firstly for the ZIMLAT legacy SLR system which is by now 20 years old and requires replacement of old hardware and electronics components and porting of software onto new operating systems and computer hardware. Secondly we will present the development of a new measurement system, originally designed for space debris observation, based on completely new hardware (telescope and mount). This system is currently validated and its tracking performance for LEO objects is being optimized and characterized.

Space debris in geostationary orbits may be detected with optical telescopes when the objects are illuminated by the Sun. The advantage compared to Radar can be found in the illumination: radar illuminates the objects and thus the detection sensitivity depletest proportional to the fourth power of the d istance. The German Space Operation Center, GSOC, together with the Astronomical Institute of the University of Bern, AIUB, are setting up a telescope system called SMARTnet to demonstrate the capability of performing geostationary surveillance. Such a telescope system will consist of two telescopes on one mount: a smaller telescope with an aperture of 20cm will serve for fast survey while the larger one, a telescope with an aperture of 50cm, will be used for follow-up observations. The telescopes will be operated by GSOC from Oberpfaffenhofen by the internal monitoring and control system called SMARTnetMAC. The observation plan will be generated by MARTnetPlanning seven days in advance by applying an optimized planning scheduler, taking into account fault time like cloudy nights, priority of objects etc. From each picture taken, stars will be identified and everything not being a star is treated as a possible object. If the same object can be identified on multiple pictures within a short time span, the trace is called a tracklet. In the next step, several tracklets will be correlated to identify individual objects, ephemeris data for these objects are generated and catalogued . This will allow for services like collision avoidance to ensure safe operations for GSOC’s satellites. The complete data processing chain is handled by BACARDI, the backbone catalogue of relational debris information and is presented as a poster.

During the last years the use of tracking cameras for SLR observations became less important due to the high accuracy of the predicted orbits. Upcoming new targets like satellites in eccentric orbits and space debris objects, however, require tracking cameras again. In 2013 the interline CCD camera was replaced at the Zimmerwald Observatory with a so called scientific CMOS camera. This technology promises a better performance for this application than all kinds of CCD cameras. After the comparison of the different technologies the focus will be on the integration in the Zimmerwald SLR system.