Progress on the Study for the Use of Long-Range Radars for Space Situational Awareness

In [1] the authors describe the results achieved in an experimental test conducted with the Leonardo RAT (Radar Avvistamento Terrestre) 31DL long range radar in December 2014 - January 2015 to test the capability of the radar to detect and track Low Earth Orbit (L EO) satellites with an external cue command derived by the NORAD (North American Aerospace Defense Command) Two Line Elements (TLE). After that experimental trials, a research activity was organized by Leonardo spa and RASSCNIT (Radar and Surveillance System – National Inter universitary Consortium for Telecommunications) with the following main goals: (i) propose new signal and data processing approaches to improve the radar performance and (ii) predict performance obtainable with the network of RAT 31 DL currently deployed on the Italian territory, so demonstrating a dual use capability of radars primarily employed for aerial surveillance. The aim of this paper is to demonstrate the capability in the SST (Space Surveillance and Tracking) scenario of such a network, in particular demonstrating the advantages in terms of coverage maps and accurate or bit determination when using a sensor network. The results are based on simulated data obtained with a simulation tool developed by CNIT RASS, able to analyse different scenarios and or bits.