Orbit determination of resident space objects with the multibeam radar sensor BIRALES

Abstract

Near-Earth space has become progressively more crowded in active satellites, inactive space- craft and debris. Consequently, an international effort is currently being devoted to improving

the performance of the network of optical and radar sensors for space objects monitoring. Within this framework, the use of the novel bistatic radar sensor BIRALES is investigated in this work, which makes use of a multibeam receiver. The tailored orbit determination algorithm is described, which receives as input the data processed by the acquisition system, that digitally assembles measured radar echoes. The performance of the orbit determination process is assessed on a set of numerical simulations carried out on the NORAD catalogue, using a dedicated simulator of the sensor and considering both cases of known and unknown objects, with single or repeated passages on the receiver sensor.