ESA Spainradar

The European Space Agency (ESA) has installed the first orbital debris test radar in Spain, which will be used to develop early warning services to help European satellite operators manoeuvre to avoid debris.

Following an 18-month design and development phase, the radar system will undergo the first series of acceptance and validation tests in November.

Using a ‘monostatic’ design, the radar’s transmitter and receiver are placed within a few hundred metres of each other.

ESA’s Space Situational Awareness (SSA) ground segment manager Gian Maria Pinna said the radar would be used to demonstrate and validate radar technologies for space debris surveillance in low-altitude orbits.

"Although the capabilities of the test radar are limited, its design will allow us to achieve considerable understanding of the technical problems inherent in orbital debris detection with radar techniques."

"Although the capabilities of the test radar are limited, its design will allow us to achieve considerable understanding of the technical problems inherent in orbital debris detection with radar techniques, a know-how that ESA is increasingly building-up via the SSA programme," Pinna said.

The agency’s SSA programme office signed a €4.7m deal in 2010 with Spain-based Indra Espacio in order to develop the radar.

Indra Espacio was involved in the design and development of the radar transmitter, while radar receiver development was subcontracted to the Fraunhofer Institute for High-Frequency Physics and Radar Techniques (FHR) in Germany.

In addition, a second contract to develop a ‘bistatic’ design radar, in which the transmitter and receiver will be separated by a few hundred kilometres, was signed with another industrial group in September.

A set of optical telescopes will join the bistatic and monostatic test radars in the future in order to provide surveillance of orbits in higher altitudes and then the entire system will be gradually improved to offer precursor warning services for satellite operators, ESA stated.

Image: The acceptance and validation tests for the first orbital debris test radar in Spain are scheduled to begin in November. Photo: courtesy of European Space Agency.