NASA Orbital Debris Observatory

NASA Orbital Debris Observatory, or NODO, operated in Lincoln National Forest near Cloudcroft, New Mexico, as a NASA site for tracking orbital debris from 1995 to 2002. The observatory had been completed in 1962 as the Cloudcroft Electro-Optical Research Facility and was later adapted for debris research. Its main instrument, the NASA-LMT liquid-mirror telescope, cataloged debris in Earth orbit by looking straight up through narrowband filters, while a second CCD Debris Telescope studied objects at or near geosynchronous orbit. The facility also supported galaxy surveys and reflects a period when astronomy and space-surveillance work overlapped in unusual ways.

New Mexico · United States