Satellite Orbit Prediction Processor: Mitigating Satellite RFI to Radio Astronomy

Radio astronomy telescopes are designed to pick up weak radio signals from space and are thus extremely sensitive to noise from radio frequency interference (RFI). While placing radio astronomy facilities in remote locations helped mitigate this problem in the past, the increasing number of satellites orbiting the earth has decreased the efficacy of this measure. Satellites passing over radio astronomy facilities can cause serious interference to observations and are a nuisance to astronomers. This paper presents the Satellite Orbit Prediction Processor (SOPP), an open-source tool for predicting satellite interference to RA observation using both orbit prediction methods and satellite frequency data [1]. SOPP is designed to help astronomers schedule observations to minimize interference from satellite sources(1).