Dr. M. (Marco) Langbroek

Dr. M. (Marco) Langbroek

Profile

Twitter

You can find me on Twitter at: https://twitter.com/Marco_Langbroek

Biography

I originally come from a completely different field of science: I studied Prehistory at the Faculty of Archaeology (MA, 1998) with the Lower and Middle Palaeolithic as my specialization. I got my PhD at Leiden University (2003) on a thesis about the earliest hominin colonization of Eurasia. After that, I did research - with an NWO VENI grant - into spatial behaviour of Neandertals at the Institute for Geo- and Bioarchaeology at the VU University Amsterdam (2008-2014).
Following that, I branched out into other fields of science. I researched meteorites at the Dutch National Museum of Natural History (Naturalis) in Leiden (2015-2017) as PI of the Diepenveen Meteorite Consortium, an international study of the Dutch Diepenveen CM-an carbonaceous chondrite. Following that I worked as a Space Situational Awareness (SSA) specialist at Leiden Observatory (the Leiden University dept. of astronomy), where we developed a basic SSA capacity for the Royal Netherlands Air Force. As of June 2022 I am a Lecturer in optical SSA at the Aerospace Faculty of TU Delft.
I obtained my experience with SSA over a period of 20 years, as part of an informal international group of satellite trackers specializing on orbit determination and object characterization of  'classified' satellites.

More information

More information and backgrounds on my activities is to be found at my personal webpage: http://www.langbroek.org
In addition, I publish a blog about my observational and OSINT activities on 'classified' Space and Missile tests:
http://sattrackcam.blogspot.com

Awards

2012 - The Dr. J. van der Bilt Prize of the Royal Dutch Astronomy and Meteorology Association (KNVWS) for my work on asteroids, satellites and meteors.
1998 - The W.A. van Es Prize of the Foundation for Dutch Archaeology (SNA) for my MA thesis.

Publications

See http://papers.langbroek.org

Expertise

Optical Space Situational Awareness (SSA)

SSA is: keeping track of everything happening in near-Earth Space with satellites, space debris, and NEA's.
It includes a.o. tracking of objects, orbit determination, orbital behaviour analysis, object characterization, and conjunction analysis.

Projects

FOTOS 1 & 2:

These projects concern(ed) feasibility studies into creating an SSA capability, commissioned by the Space Security Center of the Royal Netherlands Air Force. FOTOS 1 (ended end of 2017) was conducted at Leiden Observatory (Leiden Univ.). FOTOS 2 (2019-2022) is an expanded study and a cooperation between Leiden Observatory and Aerospace Engineering of TU Delft.

Fellowship

Fellow of the Eugène Dubois Foundation

Asteroid (183294) Langbroek

In 2008, an asteroid was officially named after me by the Internationale Astronomical Union (IAU): asteroid (183294) Langbroek.
You can read more about it here: http://asteroid183294.langbroek.org

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Publications

Media

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Ancillary activities