Beam park

rdf:langString Beam park

rdf:langString Beam park is a radar mode used for space surveillance, particularly tracking space debris. In beam-park mode, a radar beam is kept in a fixed direction with respect to the Earth, while objects passing through the beam are tracked. In 24 hours, as a result of the Earth’s rotation, the radar effectively scans a narrow strip through 360° of the celestial sphere. The scattered waves are detected by a receiver and the measurements obtained during the observations can be used to determine object radar cross-section, time of peak occurrence, polarization ratio, doppler shift and object rotation. The obtained information for each object is then processed and matched against data from previously catalogued objects.The beam-park mode can be used to detect both previously known and uncatalogued objects at any altitude, provided that the reflected power captured by the receiver can be distinguished from the noise. This limits the use of radar-based beam park observations to objects in Low-Earth Orbit (LEO). Optical instruments, in turn, have very good performance for objects in Geostationary Earth Orbit (GEO) and in Geostationary Transfer Orbit (GTO). The radar technique typically outperforms optical facilities in LEO and can conduct observations for longer periods, both during day and night, independently of the weather and object illumination by sunlight. The tracking sensitivity of radar-based space debris tracking systems can be further improved if they are working in conjunction with another transmitter or receiver, forming a bistatic radar system.