Shadow imaging of GEO satellites

Analyses show that astronomical occultation methods may be used to determine the silhouettes of satellites at geostationary distances, a result few other techniques can achieve. Specifically, an array of photon-counting detectors is positioned in the path of the target shadow from one star. Reduction of the received star intensity vs. time can yield silhouette resolution of less than a meter. In this paper, we address the critical issues of a) the limited density of useable stars, b) positioning of the detector array into the path of the shadow, and c) undoing the effects of diffraction. A conceptual design for an imaging station is presented.