As space debris in lower Earth orbits are accumulating, techniques to lower the risk of space debris collisions must be developed. Within the context of the Space Environment Research Centre (SERC), the Australian National University (ANU) is developing an adaptive optics system for tracking and pushing space debris. The strategy is to pre-condition a laser launched from a 1.8 m telescope operated by Electro Optics Systems (EOS) on Mount Stromlo, Canberra and direct it at an object to perturb its orbit. Current progress towards implementing this experiment, which will ensure automated operation between the telescope and the adaptive optics system, will be presented.

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Marcus Lingham, Doris Grosse, Francis Bennet, Mark Blundell, Amy Chan, Michael Copeland, Celine d'Orgeville, Michael Ellis, Antony Galla, Yue Gao, Luke Gers, John Hart, Ellen Houston, Visa Korkiakoski, Ian Price, Emily Rose Rees, Francois Rigaut, Ian Ritchie, Craig Smith, Tony Travouillon, Annino Vaccarella, Yanjie Wang, and James Webb, "Adaptive optics tracking and pushing system for space debris manoeuvre," Proc. SPIE 10703, Adaptive Optics Systems VI, 107030O (Presented at SPIE Astronomical Telescopes + Instrumentation: June 11, 2018; Published: 10 July 2018); https://doi.org/10.1117/12.2313181.