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Cambridge University Press (CUP), Publications of the Astronomical Society of Australia, (37), 2020

DOI: 10.1017/pasa.2020.1

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The development of non-coherent passive radar techniques for space situational awareness with the Murchison Widefield Array

Journal article published in 2020 by Steve Prabu ORCID, Paul J. Hancock ORCID, Xiang Zhang ORCID, Steven J. Tingay ORCID
This paper was not found in any repository, but could be made available legally by the author.
This paper was not found in any repository, but could be made available legally by the author.

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Abstract

Abstract The number of active and non active satellites in Earth orbit has dramatically increased in recent decades, requiring the development of novel surveillance techniques to monitor and track them. In this paper, we build upon previous non-coherent passive radar space surveillance demonstrations undertaken using the Murchison Widefield Array (MWA). We develop the concept of the Dynamic Signal to Noise Ratio Spectrum (DSNRS) in order to isolate signals of interest (reflections of FM transmissions of objects in orbit) and efficiently differentiate them from direct path reception events. We detect and track Alouette-2, ALOS, UKube-1, the International Space Station, and Duchifat-1 in this manner. We also identified out-of-band transmissions from Duchifat-1 and UKube-1 using these techniques, demonstrating the MWA’s capability to look for spurious transmissions from satellites. We identify an offset from the locations predicted by the cataloged orbital parameters for some of the satellites, demonstrating the potential of using MWA for satellite catalog maintenance. These results demonstrate the capability of the MWA for Space Situational Awareness and we describe future work in this area.

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