Ground Based Radar Interpretation of Satellite Shapes and Viewable Geometry

摘要

The objective of this paper is to use simulated radar cross sections to determine the projected size and shape of a satellite in orbit. The initial power of the radar signal is monitored to determine the flux upon the surface of a rigid-body satellite and the returned power of the radar signal. Three cases were considered for the calculations: a flat plate with attitude control, a perfect cube with attitude control, and a tumbling perfect cube with attitude control. From this data, the geometric cross section at each time step was calculated and compared to the actual value for the shape.