Space activity brought about the space debris problem that constitutes a threat to active spacecraft. Nowadays the most efficient way of spacecraft protection against space debris is choosing the appropriate orbit parameters to prevent collisions of space objects. To do this one should know the parameters of motion of space objects (SO). At present the task of determining SO orbit parameters is solved be means of the space surveillance system (SSS). The Russian space surveillance system includes only ground based facilities located on the territory of the Russian Federation and Tajikistan. This fact does not allow determining the parameters of SO motion over the Western and Southern Hemispheres. The task of monitoring SO in low orbits (up to 2000 km height) is of particular importance because there have already been collisions that generated a lot of debris which, in their turn, pose a new threat to Russian active spacecraft. To prevent prospective threats to the Russian orbital constellation associated with possible generation of new debris as a result of impacts or spontaneous separation (because of an explosion, for instance) of active SOs the parameters of motion of newly emerging space objects need to be determined quickly and efficiently. We propose to solve the task of online monitoring of space object motion by creating an orbital segment of SSS. The creation of the new system is to be preceded by the development of scientific methods for justification of its ballistic structure. This article presents a method based on the solution of an optimization task, where the target function is the dependence of the required number of measurer spacecraft on the quality indicators of space surveillance.
Methods of validation of the ballistic structure of space surveillance system orbital segment