1. Establishing the Capabilities of the Murchison Widefield Array as a Passive Radar for the Surveillance of Space.
- Author
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Hennessy, Brendan, Rutten, Mark, Young, Robert, Tingay, Steven, Summers, Ashley, Gustainis, Daniel, Crosse, Brian, and Sokolowski, Marcin
- Subjects
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SPACE surveillance , *PASSIVE radar , *RADAR signal processing , *RADIO transmitters & transmission , *FREQUENCY modulation transmitters , *ORBIT determination , *SURVEILLANCE radar - Abstract
This paper describes the use of the Murchison Widefield Array, a low-frequency radio telescope at a radio-quiet Western Australian site, as a radar receiver forming part of a continent-spanning multistatic radar network for the surveillance of space. This paper details the system geometry employed, the orbit-specific radar signal processing, and the orbit determination algorithms necessary to ensure resident space objects are detected, tracked, and propagated. Finally, the paper includes the results processed after a short collection campaign utilising several FM radio transmitters across the country, up to a maximum baseline distance of over 2500 km. The results demonstrate the Murchison Widefield Array is able to provide widefield and persistent coverage of objects in low Earth orbit. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
- Published
- 2022
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